Dark Waters
by Miss Mungoe
Summary: There are creatures that lurk in the deep, a foreign folk not like her own, and the consensus has always been that merfolk and sharkfolk don't mix. But his strangeness is what compels her, and so to the dark depths she goes, heart wide as the ocean itself and her curiosity an anchor pulling her down, down, down–
1. down into the deep

AN: So this is an AU I'm currently writing on tumblr, but I thought I'd post it here as well. It's a Fairy Tail merfolk/sharkfolk AU, and it's inspired by artworks of the artists **approvesport** and **blackracoon25**, but the credit goes to **yuuba** for the original idea.

Disclaimer: Fairy Tail and its characters belong to Hiro Mashima; I own absolutely nothing. Cover by Grace/**blanania.**

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**Dark Waters**

by Miss Mungoe

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**Chapter 1**

She'd been watching him for days, hidden some ways off behind a decent-sized rock jutting from the ocean floor, the shifting underwater shadows hiding her from sight.

She shouldn't even be there to begin with. It was far past the border separating Makarov's kingdom from that of the sharkfolk, which she only knew through hearsay – and ___not_ the good kind. But curiosity had always been her biggest vice, and the colourful reefs of her home had too soon grown over-familiar to her always questing eyes, and she'd grown bored with what she _knew__._ She sought more – other sights than the few samples she could find in the palace repository. She wanted something new – ___someplace_ new. And she wanted to see them for herself, the foreign waters that lurked outside the safety of Teeth's Edge, the ridge of sharp rocks at the northernmost reaches of the kingdom, rising a natural wall to keep Makarov's people in.

And the sharkfolk out.

It had started with a short foray over the border, just to see how far she dared go. There were no sentries this far north, and passing had been easier than she'd thought. Just past Teeth's Edge, the ocean floor gave way to a steep drop, so deep that you couldn't even see the bottom. The waters ran dark like a squid's ink, and that first time she hadn't done more than linger at the top of the ridge, her good sense warring with the thrill of being so close to the unknown.

And with every new attempt she'd swum further, always a little deeper, and she'd found the waters not dark at all, but illuminated by strange, green stones in the rock formations, like the gems humans coveted, but glowing with unnatural light. They lit the way of a tunnel, she'd come to realize one day, and the next time she'd ventured down she'd brought with her a weapon – a sharp shell carved to a knife's edge. It rested heavy in her satchel still, and she'd draw comfort from the weight of it as she'd swum forever deeper. She should have been wary of the cramped passageway, but the further she'd advanced the wilder her imagination had become of what she'd find at the other end.

And like she'd suspected, at the end of the tunnel the eerily lit darkness had given way to open waters. The kingdom of the sharkfolk, vast and wild and ___new_ to her wide eyes.

But her initial excitement with her discovery had been curbed rather quickly by what had greeted her eyes next – skeletons, pierced through by sharp poles stuck to the rocky bottom. ___Merfolk_, she'd realized, and the sight had almost made her turn back when something else had drawn her attention.

She'd heard stories of the home of the sharkfolk, described as the unfortunate creation of one of Neptune's darker moods. A barren kingdom of ravaged stone and the shipwrecks of foolhardy humans, or just unlucky ones brought down by the sharkfolk themselves, their ships dragged to the cold depths and looted for treasure and folk alike.

But instead she'd found an open terrain quite unlike anything she'd expected, with its dark, jutting rocks a sharp contrast to the softly swelling sand, and crystals like the ones in the tunnel, but in a thousand different shades of green and blue, dotting the rock formations like the lights in the night sky she'd seen on her rare visits to the Above. The water had been still and quiet, and little had stirred in the sand or amongst the rocks, and Levy had found it to be anything but dreadful.

So mesmerized had she been by her new surroundings, she hadn't realized she'd started swimming until she'd looked back and found she couldn't even make out the tunnel's entrance. But she'd come too far to turn back, and so she'd pressed on, always just a little bit further. She'd tried to pry one of the glowing gems from the rock's hold, but even her persistence hadn't been able to convince the stone to release its treasure, and she'd resolved to bring an instrument to loosen one next time she came, to take back with her to study. Unduly pleased with her plan, she'd just been about to turn back when another sight had reeled in her attention.

That had been when she'd first laid eyes on him – the first of the sharkfolk she'd ever seen, and she'd been caught and held in a fisherman's net of her own imaginings by the sight.

He'd been nothing like what she'd heard sharkfolk described as – ugly, brutish creatures with unnaturally wide, always-grinning mouths and bodies riven with scars. Scars he did have – she'd been able to spot them even from a distance, but he was far from ugly. With a long tail, grey and lightly speckled almost like a tiger shark's, he was sharp edges and hard angles from his fins to his face. And his ___hair_ – Levy had never seen the like even amongst her own people, sinuous and dark like the water around him.

She hadn't been able to tell what he'd been doing – patrolling, maybe, though he hadn't seemed to be following any specific pattern as he cut through the water at a languid pace. She'd made sure to stay well out of sight and hearing, and kept still as he passed. At times he'd disappear out of sight, but she hadn't dared move, for fear he'd circle back, which he often did. Only when she'd been sure he'd gone did she come out of hiding, and by then it was usually late enough that she had to hurry back through the tunnel before anyone came to look for her.

But she'd been coming back ever since, in hopes that she might catch another glimpse. Some days she didn't, like now, but other times he'd show up after a while. He'd made no indication he knew she was there, but Levy hadn't dared any attempt at making contact. Even if he didn't match the descriptions she'd heard of the sharkfolk, that didn't mean he'd be at all friendly to her rather blatant trespassing.

And the thought of the merfolk skeletons was still fresh in her mind, stilling whatever urge she had to reach out.

"_Levy._"

The voice hissed at her side, and she started, drawn from her thoughts to find a head of golden hair and brown eyes wild with worry. The sight of her friend was a sudden flash of colour in the otherwise grey-and-green of their surroundings, but Levy was too surprised to see her to think of the consequences of _that._

Lucy was livid. "What in the depths are you ___doing_ here? You know we're not allowed over the border!" The sharp whisper was followed by a swift, nervous glance, as if the water itself would prove its alleged treacherousness by turning on them.

Levy balked. "What am I doing here? Luce, what are ___you_ doing here?" she hissed back, but her friend wasn't listening. A hand came to circle her wrist, as Lucy tried to tug her with her.

"Come on, we're going back. I don't know what made you even think about coming here and I don't care, we've got to ___go__,_ now – Levy, ___come on__._"

"I can't!" she whispered fiercely, trying feebly to pull her hand back. "He might be back soon, and Lucy, you don't–"

And if she'd hoped her words would halt her friend's eagerness to leave, she'd chosen the correct ones.

"___He_?"

Levy felt her cheeks flush a deep, coral red, but the panic had been chased off the other mermaid's face, replaced by a set of curiously raised brows Levy recognized instantly. She swallowed thickly. "Yes," she admitted. There was no use hiding it now. _"He."_

She saw the flicker in Lucy's eyes as she cast another glance past the rock, as if he was hiding on the other side. "So…you're meeting someone?" She sounded dubious rather than outraged.

The flush deepened. "Not…exactly."

One brow travelled up past the other, and Levy covered her face with her hands. "How did you even find me?" she asked past her fingers.

When she glanced up, Lucy's curiosity had been replaced by disbelief. "Are you serious? You've been disappearing almost every day to Neptune knows where, not saying a ___word_," she paused for emphasis. "I was ___worried__._" She crossed her arms over her chest. "So I followed you. Past Teeth's Edge, and Levy are you ___mad__?_ You know we're not even allowed near it, let alone this far past!" She threw another look around. "Tide's mercy, that better be one good looking shark."

And despite her distress, the words were spoken with humour and the quirk of a lip, and Levy found her own, hesitant smile curving in response.

But then the smile on Lucy's face vanished, and her gaze was drawn to something in the distance, and Levy didn't have to turn to know what she'd caught sight of.

"But good looking or not, I'm sensing this is our cue to leave," she said, her words rushed, and Levy followed the line of her gaze to a disturbance in the calm water ahead – a shadow amongst the winking crystal lights.

And compared to the other times she'd come to watch him patrol the area, it was clear to her by the purposeful stroke of his tail fin that they'd been spotted.

"_Now_, Levy!"

And she didn't have to be told twice, and pushed herself through the water after Lucy, panic rising like bile in her throat, and for a moment she wasn't sure which direction to swim – to get away or to just find a place to hide, she didn't know. The latter seemed foolish, as he'd already spotted them and she wasn't fast enough to put enough distance between them to find a hiding spot. But if they could get through the tunnel and across the border before he caught up with them…

But the tunnel's entrance was nowhere to be seen, and her fear was a wild thing now, weighing her down even as she pushed through the water after Lucy, who too seemed at a loss of where to go.

An idea struck her to reach for the shell-knife in her satchel, but she didn't get much further than thinking it before there was a sharp pressure on her wrist, and before she knew it she was pulled back roughly, the water surging around her like a whirlpool as she cried out.

And then he was there, all sharp lines and even sharper fins, and his hair wild and dark like the furthermost depths, the strands curling like livings things in the water's play.

His face was livid with anger as he drew her close, until she felt she'd be submerged by the dark of his hair and his presence alone, and the sudden, fearful thought struck her that she'd no idea what his people did to trespassers. An image flitted before her mind's eye, of the skeletons on the pikes by the tunnel marking the entryway to his domain, and her fear beat with furious fins in the bottom of her stomach.

His face was pressed close to hers, and she'd have laughed at her earlier thought that he had such handsome features, riven as they were now with his fury. And his words bit sharp like teeth, so much so that she flinched away at the sound.

"The hell do you think you're doing in sharkfolk territory, ___mermaid_?"

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AN: I hope you're enjoying this so far! More parts are still to come, so stay tuned. And be sure to check out the artwork this is based on and give the artists your love.


	2. trespassers beware

AN: Thank you all so much for the feedback on this so far; it's really spurred my inspiration into action, so have another chapter, for your reading pleasure!

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**Chapter 2**

The mermaid was rigid in his grip, wrist thin and pale like a seashell under his fingers, but she made no move to get away, only kept staring right at him, eyes wide and frightened in her face.

It wasn't his first time seeing one of her kind, but it was the first he'd ever been so close. The differences between her folk and his leaped out at him – the vivid colour of her tail, and her skin, almost human-like in its softness, and tinted with a warm flush where his was cold and grey in comparison. She was such an anomaly amongst the shadows and the eerie green glow of the crystals, as though a stray piece of the sky and the sun had fallen down from Above.

"Hey!"

The call drew both their attentions, and he looked past her to find another mermaid, this one a little larger and with hair like gold, the kind that drove humans out of their wits, to be found in chests in sunken ships. Another piece of the sun, maybe. He found an odd sort of humour in the idea.

But unlike the one he was still holding, this one looked _angry._ "Hands off her!"

Her arrival seemed to snap the little one out of her stupor, but when she tried to tug her hand away, Gajeel only tightened his grip. "Ya didn't answer my question."

She glared up at him. "Would you let me go?"

He curled his fingers tighter. "Answer the _question_," he snapped. Was she deaf?

Her cheeks flushed suddenly, but from what he couldn't tell – embarrassment at being caught, most likely. She tugged harder at her hand. "What's it to you, anyway? Do you own this corner of the ocean or something?"

Gajeel contemplated cracking a joke, but the betrayal still ached like an old wound, and didn't allow for humour on his old man's expense. Either way, whatever he'd been about to say, he was interrupted by another set of fingers, attempting to pry his away with surprising force. "Well _clearly_ it was a mistake coming here," the golden-haired one said. "Not ones for hospitality, are you?"

He turned his attention to her, only to find her glaring back, and some of his earlier anger surged back to the surface. The depths were they playing so damn ignorant for? "Merfolk aren't allowed here. Your kind should know – you're the ones who created the Neptune-cursed border in the first place."

The blue-haired one frowned at that. "What? What do you mean we _created_ it?"

He looked at her, and saw the genuine surprise on her face. Merfolk were such expressive creatures – far more than his kind, that was sure. He wondered how they managed, carrying their feelings around for everyone to see, as visible as a missing fin. And doubtless just as big an impediment, at least as far as Gajeel was concerned. "Don't you know your own damn history, mermaid?"

"Oh, and _you_ do?" she countered, and tried again to pull her hand free of his grip. "Let go!"

"Swear you'll never cross the border again."

She frowned. "What? No, I'm not going to–"

He drew her closer again, and she yelped. "_Swear_."

"Hey!" the fair-haired one protested, but her friend cut her off.

"Okay! Okay – _fine_, you won't see tail or fin of us again, if you'd just let us _go. _Alright?" She met his gaze then, and the fear was gone, replaced now by a curiosity so vivid he had a feeling his warning had only made her more intrigued. And the part of him that had long since grown impatient with silly whims felt it was only just if her own folly caused her to meet her end at the sharp edge of a trident.

But another part of him – the stubborn, righteous part his father's usurper had yet to drive completely out of him, rebelled at the existence of the border in the first place. There wasn't much innocence left in the dark waters of his home, and certainly not the kind that shone in the mermaid's eyes.

And so, "I'm _serious_. This place is dangerous, and you've no business trespassing here."

She had the gall to roll her eyes. "_Fine_ – we're going. Right, Lucy?" She cut a look at her friend. "We'll be out of your...hair," she said, then swallowed thickly, and he thought she might be hiding a smile.

Gajeel glared. "Oye, this isn't funny, shortfin. This–"

"_Shortfin_?" she cut him off, but seemed more amused than angry. "Really?"

And he regretted then, his chosen course of action. If he'd been more threatening from the get-go – if he'd taken advantage of the fear that had been in her eyes when he'd first caught her, they might have been halfway through the tunnel by now, out of fear for their lives if nothing else.

He was about to shout at her now, for stalling when she should be turning tail and swimming back to where she'd come from, far away from the place he called home (and that only tentatively these days). But he didn't get the chance, not even to drag them back himself, because in the distance there were shadows moving towards them through the water. He was out of time.

_Damn it! _

"You know, if you'd just ask _nicely_, we'd–"

"Quiet!" he hissed, and he tightened his grip in warning, hoping it conveyed the message better than his words seemed to. With his free hand he grabbed the other one, pulling her closer. She was about to protest, but his expression must have looked sufficiently severe, because they both held their tongues as the party drew closer.

He looked up, eyes tracing the outline of ridges and sharp, jutting fins in the distance as he tried to make out who'd been sent to fetch him back, and he had to hold back a groan.

Of course it had to be _Jose._ Out of everyone the damn traitor could possibly send to make sure Gajeel didn't cut and swim. Dumb as a sea cucumber or not, there was no way he was going to be able to talk away the presence of two mermaids on the wrong side of the border. His old man's kingdom had already gone to shit; the last thing they needed was to give the bogus king a reason to invade the merfolk's domain on suspicion of Makarov sending spies.

"Well, _well_, Gajeel. What's this? Looks like you've caught yourself some colourful fish." The leer was firmly in place, and he saw the mermaids wrinkle their noses at the sight, though he'd expected nothing different. Jose was many things, but aesthetically pleasing was not one of them, and no doubt even less so by merfolk standards.

"Would you look at that – mermaids, and this far over the border." He leaned closer to the fair-haired one – Lucy, or something of the like. "And what _pretty_ mermaids they are. A small wonder Makarov would let them out of his sight, let alone into _our_ territory," he mused.

"The king didn't send them. They came on their own," Gajeel said, meeting the little one's gaze. "To look at the _gems._" His glare dared her to disagree, and he was relieved to find that she seemed happy to play along, at least for the moment.

But Jose had always been too damn suspicious for his own good, and more so when it came to the king of the merfolk, although what business the sawshark had with the old merman Gajeel couldn't hope to understand. "The gems," Jose repeated blandly.

The little one surprised him then, by suddenly fumbling through her satchel, before she drew her free hand out to reveal a green crystal in the heart of her palm. "I was gathering them," she blurted, voice a little shaky, but she held the long-nosed shark's gaze. "If-if that was wrong of me, I'll put it back?"

Jose looked at her for a long time, and for all the years in his company, Gajeel couldn't for the life of him figure out what he was thinking.

Then, with a flick of his wrist, "Search the satchel."

_Now_ the fear was back in her eyes. "No!" She tried to hide it behind her, but with only one free hand she didn't succeed, and one of Jose's posse ripped it out of her grip. "Hey – careful with that!"

The sharkman ignored her as he rifled through the contents, before pulling out a seashell dagger that looked sharper than Gajeel would have expected, of such a tiny mermaid. "You've come armed," Jose said, accusation clear in his voice. He cut a glance towards the blue-haired mermaid. "Were you expecting much trouble from the crystals?"

If she had an actual answer to that she didn't get a chance to offer it, as his attention was claimed by the next item from the satchel handed to him. From what Gajeel could see it was a plate about the size of his palm, the surface polished smooth like pearl. But it wasn't until Jose flipped it over that he saw what it really was.

On it was a likeness of himself, carved into the smooth surface with surprising skill. It looked almost as good as the one his mother had used to keep of his father; a polished seashell on a silver chain she'd carried in the dip of her throat. It was one of his earliest memories, and he was startled to find it leaping back to him now from dark depths long buried.

Gajeel looked at the mermaid for answers, only to find her cheeks flushed red and her head dipped low, avoiding the gazes of those around her. And he knew then, what she'd been using the knife for.

"Now _this_ is interesting," Jose hummed, turning the carving over in his hands. "It would appear someone's been spying on you, Gajeel."

That seemed to snap her out of her embarrassment. "I wasn't sp–"

"You know _this_," Jose pushed on, ignoring her as he proffered the carving. "Is an action punishable in this kingdom. And I don't doubt our good king would want to hear of this mortal affront towards his dear nephew."

The word _nephew_ stung like an insult, but Jose made no visible effort to voice it like one. And that made it worse, somehow. As though his father had never been murdered, and Gajeel was perfectly happy having his uncle on the throne. As though it wasn't a _mortal affront_ just to see him sitting on the damn thing.

"That's pushing it, don't ya think?" he asked, although for all he knew that was exactly what she'd been doing. But he didn't care overly much if it was – that would only mean Jose was right.

And he hated it when Jose was right.

The sawshark waved him off. "Either way, I'm sure Acnologia would want to hear of this. Trespassers into his kingdom is no joking matter, regardless of their reasons," he said, as he placed the carving back into the satchel, before tossing it unceremoniously to one of his men. And with a swift, cutting motion of his hand, he gestured in the direction of the capitol. "We're taking them with us."

Whatever protests Gajeel had, they were swallowed by the mermaids' collective shouts of alarm.

"No! Get off me!"

"Hey, let go – I said, _let_–"

"Do as he says!" he hissed into the little one's ear. "Or you'll be the next bodies decorating the tunnel entrance. That what you want?"

She shivered, at his nearness or the warning, Gajeel didn't know. But when he drew her with him, she didn't put up a fight. He watched her cast a brief, panicked look towards her friend, who only shook her head before she too allowed herself to be dragged along, deeper into sharkfolk territory than any of their kind had set tail or fin in years. Gajeel felt the oncoming headache like the palace drums during ceremonial hours.

_What in the bloody depths had he gotten himself into?_

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AN: Make sure you all check out the art **rboz **on tumblr drew for the first chapter! Like her talent, it is beyond this world.


	3. a kingdom of shadow

AN: Glad to see so many people enjoying this; it definitely makes it fun writing it for you. And there's been more amazing artwork since last chapter, this time by the talented **d-eliade** and **chinchilia** on tumblr, so make sure you check them out!

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**Chapter 3**

The sharkfolk's capitol city was – as she'd now come to expect, Levy thought not without a twinge of wry amusement – everything but what she'd expected it to be.

They weren't given the scenic tour, unsurprisingly, as she doubted they paraded spies around for the populace to see on a regular basis. But even from the route they were led she caught glimpses of the city through the underwater shadows – tall, spiralling rocks rising from the ocean floor, as though shaped by the currents themselves and not by hands like merfolk dwellings were.

Like the rest of the kingdom there was a rough elegance to it, sharp and cutting, but also hauntingly lovely where the stone arched soft like a seashell's curves in some places, before jutting like a knife's edge towards the unreachable Above, so far away from the dark depths where the light of the sun couldn't hope to reach. But in crevices in the stone winked the now familiar green crystals, though their patterns seemed too precise to be natural; it was markedly different from the wild outer reaches of the kingdom, where they flourished at random. Here they formed structured patterns, following the curvature of the stone constructions.

There was a tug at her arm, and her view was cut off, drowned by shadow as she was pulled along at her captor's whim. Annoyance and fear warred for control in her stomach, along with embarrassment, as she thought of the carving they'd plucked from her satchel before they'd confiscated it. But he hadn't mentioned it; he hadn't even spared her a second glance since they'd set off, and she was strangely glad of the fact, as her cheeks burned at the mere thought.

She tried to catch Lucy's eye, but the dark made it impossible, and so she settled for looking straight ahead, hoping in vain that if she could somehow remember the route, they'd have a better chance at finding their way back when they escaped. Although the deeper they were led into this foreign city of ever-stretching shadows and crystals, Levy began to question their chances of making it out of captivity, let alone the city.

After what seemed like an age they finally came to a stop at the furthermost edge of the capitol where dwellings were sparse, and where a towering circle of dark corals rose to form what looked like a fence.

"Tell the warden I want to see him," the shark with the pointed nose announced to the guard waiting at what she found to be a gate. A prison, then, Levy thought with a nervous glance towards the sharp edges of the corals rising higher than she could see. There'd be no getting past it unless they found a way to swim _over_ it, and with the amount of guards she could spot from her vantage point alone, there was no way they'd make it, especially considering how much they stood out with their brightly coloured fins and tails.

"Jose," a new voice spoke up then, and she looked up to see a shark swim towards them from the open gate. This one was larger than the long-nosed one – _much_ larger, and almost entirely dark in colour. An eye-catching scar dissected his brow, and she noticed that he had his grey-streaked hair cropped short.

He came to a stop before them, and nodded towards the shark holding her. "Gajeel." His eyes lingered on Levy a moment, before he turned his gaze to the one who'd asked for him.

The shark with the long nose grinned. "I'm bringing you quite the catch today." He nodded towards one of his goons, who proffered Lucy like a piece of loot. The one holding Levy did the same, but with a reluctance that surprised her. She glanced up at him, but he was pointedly not looking at her.

"Mermaids?" the warden asked, looking towards the long-nosed shark. "You went over the border?" There was an edge to his deep voice, dark and accusing.

Jose grinned, entirely unperturbed by the display of anger. "Better – they came to us." He leered at Levy. "To look at the crystals. Isn't that right?" The mockery was so sharp she could taste it, but she didn't grant him the satisfaction of a response. Instead she pressed her lips together, and resolutely said nothing.

The warden watched the exchange wordlessly, before nodding towards the shark holding Levy – the one they all called Gajeel. "We'll put them in a cell, and I'll have them questioned later."

The long-nosed shark smiled. "I'll go and inform His Majesty."

The warden didn't spare him a second glance. "You do that."

Then they were being led through the gate, and at first Levy wondered if they were just going to leave them there out in the open, as she couldn't see anything resembling a prison compound like the one they had back home.

Then she saw the hole, and her heart fell out the bottom of her stomach. _Oh, no. _

The hand around her wrist tightened at her resistance, and despite her struggle she was pulled towards it, like helpless driftwood in a whirlpool. _No, no no no __**no**__–_

It was a hole in the ocean floor, just about wide enough to fit five merfolk shoulder-to-shoulder, before plummeting down into bottomless darkness. And as they were taken down they passed what she found to be cells – level upon level of cells empty and occupied alike. Along the walls beside the openings were more crystals, their eerie gleam lighting the way just enough to see your immediate surroundings – the cells on either side, but no further down or up. Outside the dim sphere of light, the darkness loomed like a sickness.

Levy wanted to throw up.

After what felt like an eternity, they stopped outside one of the cell doors. From what she could tell, there were no occupants in the chambers surrounding it, and for that at least, she felt thankful. But the feeling only lasted a moment, until the bars were opened and they were shoved in with no further explanation. The bars were secured, and with one final look the warden began his ascent back up through the darkness.

The one called Gajeel lingered, an unreadable look on his face. The king's nephew, that was what that long-nosed shark had called him. That made him royalty, and Levy was under suspicion of spying on him. And she didn't have to be a shark to know the severity of that accusation; the crime carried the same weight in both kingdoms. In this, at least, they weren't so different a folk.

There was a moment she wondered if he might speak up, but all he did was narrow his eyes, before he turned to follow the warden. He hadn't said a word throughout the whole exchange, and she didn't know why that bothered her as much as it did.

Turning back to Lucy, Levy found she'd settled down against the wall on the far side of the cell. The crystals on the outside didn't offer enough light to see all the way to the back, and her friend was almost completely swallowed by the dark.

Swallowing her nervousness – she _hated_ the dark – Levy settled down next to her friend. The stone of the cell wall felt cold against her back as she gingerly tucked her tail beneath her, and she tried to keep her calm, though her heart felt skitterish like a school of fish pushing against her ribcage. A heavy silence reigned, pressing down until her head felt thick with it, and she longed to say something – anything to break the lull, or make the situation better. _This is all my fault. _

She'd only been sitting down a moment when she heard it: "_Mermaids, Gajeel__?" _

Levy opened her eyes with a start – the muffled voice was difficult to pick out, but she'd caught it, and she grappled for the faint trail of sound, like an imaginary thread through the murky water. She'd always had a knack for Listening, the skill taught to all apprentices at the royal repository, and it granted her better hearing than most. Enough to pick out voices at a distance deemed too long by most.

Swimming towards the bars, she pressed her ear against them. From where she'd been resting, Lucy looked up with a frown. "Lev, what–"

"Sshh!" Holding up a hand, Levy turned back to concentrate. "They're talking about us."

"_The depths was I supposed to do, Lily? Jose had already seen 'em." _The shark hadn't left, then. He was speaking with the warden.

There was a pause, and Levy strained her ears. Then the warden spoke, _"I know. But you do realize how this complicates things?"_

A muffled snort._"No, Lil. I thought it'd be a good idea to include a pair of mermaids for kicks. What's the fun with a meticulously planned coup if you can't shake things up?" _

"_You know, your sarcasm used to cut sharper than that." _A bark of a laugh._"I'm a little disappointed in you, Gajeel." _

Another pause. Then, _"Yeah, well that makes two of us." _But there was no laughter in his answer, only a hollow self-loathing that cut deeper than it should.

The next reply was too muted for her to hear – they'd moved too far away, and Levy frowned, pressing her ear closer to the bars in a desperate attempt to grasp just a sliver of sound. And she was so busy concentrating on her task she heard Lucy's startled noise just a little too late–

"What are you doing?"

She drew away from the bars, hands raised in – what, she wasn't entirely sure. A gesture of surrender or one of innocence, whichever better suited her perceived crime.

The sharkman on the other side of the bars looked at her with a brow quirked in obvious amusement. The braided cord slung diagonally across his chest marked him as one of the guards. "Aren't you two already in there for spying?"

"_We weren't spying!"_ they spoke up at the same time, and looked at each other in surprise.

Then Lucy pursed her lips, and turned her attention to the shark. "We were arrested on _suspicion_ of spying – there's been no trial yet, as far as I'm aware."

Her friend's words drew his attention away from Levy, and Levy found her eyes drawn to him in turn, or more specifically, to his hair. _What in the depths..._

It was a bright, startling _pink –_ like the corals from the royal gardens back home, sitting just under the surface of the water at the furthermost edge of the palace grounds. At sunset the light of the sun dipping into the ocean would make the reef glow a golden pink; it had used to be Levy's favourite phenomenon to watch when she was younger. And this shark's hair brought her in mind of it, and the stray memory was a dearly welcome thing in the near oppressing darkness she doubted had ever seen the light of the sun.

But it wasn't just the hair; the rest of him followed the same colour scheme, from deep coral red to dark rust at the far tip of his tail-fin. Where all the other sharks she'd seen so far had been varying shades of predominantly dark and cold colours, this one was markedly different.

"I'm Natsu," he greeted then, seemingly unaware of her blatant staring, his smile stretching wide and toothy – and unmistakably _shark_. "I've never seen a mermaid before." He peered closer through the bars. "You don't look very menacing to me."

Levy frowned. "Menacing?"

He shrugged. "I've always heard mermaids were super scary. Oh, and that you suck people's souls out through their mouths." His brows narrowed with suspicion. "You don't actually do that, though?"

Lucy snorted. "Don't dismiss the idea just yet," she warned. To Levy she murmured, "Looks like we've got something of a reputation down here."

Levy said nothing to that, but allowed the thought to sink in. She'd always imagined her own folk to be the peaceful of the two; the sharkfolk were scary night-time stories and ways for mothers to keep their minnows in check. She'd never actually stopped to consider that the sharkfolk might have similar stories about _them._

Which led her again to wonder just why their people had grown so far apart. There was obviously a shared history there, but at some point the border had been created and closed off, an no one had set tail or fin on the other side since.

_Until now_, Levy thought, with another glance at their cell. Her brothers would throw a collective fit if they knew where she was, and the sheer amount of trouble she'd gotten herself into. Speaking of which, they were probably worrying themselves sick; someone must have realized they were missing by now. The question was, would they even think to look over the border?

She thought about the skeletons by the tunnel, and Gajeel's words before they'd been captured–

"_Merfolk aren't allowed here. Your kin should know – you're the ones who created the border in the first place."_

She chewed on her bottom lip. What had he meant by that? Nothing in their collected history said anything of the sort, and Levy would know, having practically grown up in the palace repository where the seashell archives were.

Only a select few knew the sort of magic it took to capture and contain speech in the curved confinements of seashells – Levy was still just an apprentice, and she'd been learning the craft for years. Listening was just one of the arts, and by far the easiest; Collecting was harder to grasp and took long to master. Amongst the merfolk, history was passed on through word-of-mouth, and then recorded and stored by the Archivists, and Levy had listened to every single shell in the archives several times over. There'd only ever been snippets about the sharkfolk – about tensions between the kingdoms and small border skirmishes, but nothing about the border being a creation of the merfolk to begin with. In fact, she'd never even questioned how it had come to be; it had always just existed, a natural barrier between their two worlds.

But she wondered, suddenly, if the sharks somehow knew the missing piece to that story. From the impression Gajeel had given her, he seemed to know more than she did, anyhow. She wondered if he'd tell her, if she asked.

When she finally drew herself out of her thoughts, Lucy was still talking to the guard. Her rigid shoulders had lost some of their tension, but that could easily be chalked up to the absurdly cheerful expression on his face, and the laughable fact that he had the same colouring as Makarov's favourite garden-corals.

"You can't just keep us here without a trial," she was saying. "Even your people must have laws."

He raised a brow. "You mean like laws against trespassing?" he deadpanned.

Levy swam forward. "But I've been the only trespasser," she tried. "Lucy just came to take me back; you can let her go. She's done nothing wrong here, _I_ _have_."

"Lev–"

"We caught her on our side the border," Natsu said. "That makes her a trespasser." He shrugged. "It's pretty simple."

A muffled call from up above drew his attention suddenly, and he glanced back towards them with a quick smile. "Gotta go! It was nice meeting you, though." His sharp grin widened as he swam away, calling down to them through the dark, "Don't go sucking out any souls while I'm gone!"

Lucy rolled her eyes. "I wouldn't count on it!" she yelled back, hands curled around the bars. When he was gone, she groaned, shoulders sagging as she leaned against them. "This is a _mess_. I won't be surprised if they decide not to give us a trial at all."

Levy wrung her hands; she didn't really want to think about what awaited them at the hands of the king. "Yeah." She paused. "Hey. I'm sorry, Lucy. I didn't mean for this to happen. If there was any way I could get you out–"

Her best friend turned to her with a look. "Don't you dare finish that sentence. You know I'd never leave you here, even if they sent me off with a parade." There was a hard quality to her gaze, and her smile was the one Levy remembered from when they were minnows and they'd get into trouble stealing sweets from the palace kitchens. It was the kind of smile that said everything would be alright, if she just gave it time. "We're either getting out of here together, or not at all. Okay?"

Levy returned the smile, and tried to keep it from wavering as Lucy swam back to settle against the far wall of the cell again. She kept her worry like a secret in her chest, clutched tight and contained so it wouldn't seep out and show on her face. And she tried to turn her mind to the fond memory of irate palace cooks chasing them down curving corridors as they tried not to drop their loot, but found the image replaced by the disapproving face of the warden shark, and her fear shivered across her skin like a cold current.

She glanced at Lucy, finding a familiar determination in the press of her full mouth. _Together, or not at all. _

Levy turned back to the bars. The glow of the crystals allowed her to see across to the empty cells around her, but the darkness above and below might as well have been solid rock for all it allowed her to see. Lucy's words clung to her mind still, and her hands clenched around the bars until the pain forced her to loosen her grip. _Together, or not at all. _She peered into the darkness. _Oh, Luce. _

_Don't you see that's exactly what I'm afraid of._

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AN: Natsu is a pink shark and I regret nothing. Also I've replaced the word "child" with "minnow" here because I thought it was cute and I've a newfound appreciation for fish-related vocabulary.


	4. before the throne of the king

AN: After this chapter I'll be moving on to updates every other week instead of every week, as my semester is getting pretty busy and I want to be able to give you quality chapters that aren't rushed. I hope you won't mind!

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**Chapter 4**

She was awake before the sound of the bars being wrenched open dragged her fully from sleep, and she looked up, only to find the grinning face of the long-nosed shark leer at her from the cell's entrance.

"Morning, my dear mermaids."

Levy rubbed at her eyes. Her sleep had been restless, and it was hard forcing her body to wake up when it was so deceptively dark. So far away from the sun, it was impossible to tell what time of day it was, although in truth, the ever-pressing darkness of the prison would have ensured that, even if they'd been a short swim from the surface.

"I've spoken to His Majesty," Jose went on, and Levy's heart sank at the glee in his voice. "You've got an audience."

It was Lucy who spoke up first. "And if we refuse?"

He threw her an entirely unamused look. "Then we'll drag you there by your tail-fins." He shrugged. "It's your choice."

Levy placed a hand on her shoulder. "Let's just go with them, Lu."

For a moment, Levy was afraid Lucy was going to outright refuse, but after a tense lull she nodded stiffly, and let her crossed arms fall down to rest against her sides – a gesture of surrender, though Levy could see the tense flex of her shoulder muscles. She was far from calm.

The saw-shark wasted no time, and had them escorted out of the cell with a wordless gesture to his goons. Levy looked between them, but found no sign of the pink-haired shark who'd talked to them the day before. She didn't know why she felt disappointed. But he'd been kind, hadn't he? Or the closest thing to, as far as the rest of his kind were concerned. At least the ones Levy had met so far.

She tried not to think about the cold fingers clamped around her wrist, and tried to keep up as they dragged her out of the cell. But a moment later she found it wasn't all that hard – at the prospect of getting out of the hole, her body seemed to take charge, and despite her exhaustion she found a reserve of strength she didn't know she had as she pushed herself towards the surface.

The ascent seemed to take forever, a hundred locked cells passing them on their way, but then they finally pushed through the last cover of darkness, and she could have wept.

It was still dark, but it was a different sort of dark – not the oppressing shadows of the prison-hole, but a vast ocean stretching as far as she could see, though it was partly blocked by the coral fence surrounding the prison. But her relief was a song within her, and she had to hold back a sob. Her heart ached at the realization that _this_ was what she'd been reduced to, and she spared a longing thought for her home, the bright coral reefs and golden sunlight flickering across the surface of the water Above. She wondered idly if she'd ever see it again.

They weren't given long to gather their bearings before they were pulled towards the gate, where the warden was already waiting for them. Levy thought about the conversation she'd overheard, about the coup against the king, and averted her gaze guiltily, afraid he'd somehow read her thoughts on her face.

"Jose," he said simply, as they passed through the open gate. Levy chanced a quick glance at his expression, but found it unreadable.

Jose on the other hand, looked happy as a clam. "Lily. Don't worry, I'll have them back in a jiffy. His Majesty is terribly busy, as you know. They probably won't be invited to dinner." He laughed at his own joke, and Levy saw Lucy's nose wrinkle with annoyance.

The warden didn't reward him with so much as a noise in response. The saw-shark's laughter was cut short, and with a glare and a cutting motion of his hand, he ordered his goons to hurry.

Levy winced as the pressure around her wrist tightened, but she kept her discomfort to herself. As they put the coral fence and the prison behind them, she looked back, only to find the warden watching their departure. But the unreadable look was gone, and the corners of his mouth were turned downwards in a sharp frown.

Another insistent tug on her arm and she was drawn away, back into the shadows of the shark kingdom. She could see the city in the distance, the glittering spires reaching up through the dark waters like pleading hands stretching towards the surface far beyond their reach. They didn't enter the city this time, but skirted around the edge, always keeping in the shadows, until they reached a set of elaborate gates. Jose spoke to the guards posted before it, and before long they opened inwards to allow them entry, revealing a curving path with sharp rocks rising like natural walls on each side.

It seemed to go on forever into the dark with no end in sight, but just as Levy was starting to become afraid they were going further down into the deep, the closed pathway suddenly opened up to reveal the royal palace. Her eyes widened as she took in the sight, gaze sweeping over the vast palace grounds. An enormous, sprawling courtyard lay before them at the foot of the actual palace rising up through the underwater shadows. And if she'd thought the city had been beautiful, the king's residence chased the image from her mind completely.

Fashioned from obsidian rock, the spiralling pillars looked nothing like their rough counterparts in the city, but more like they were carved by magic for their perfect design. Swirling metal balustrades decorated balconies and walkways, and there were domes that could only have been made from the green crystals, for how they glowed with green light amidst the black palace walls.

Levy had always thought King Makarov's palace to be the biggest structure she'd ever seen, but the shark king's was easily twice that size, if not more.

So dazzled by the sight, she only realized she'd drifted off into her own mind when she was startled back to the present by a shadow moving towards them through the water.

"Ah, _Juvia_," Jose cooed, as what Levy found to be a sharkmaid drew close. "Just in time."

She didn't respond to the greeting immediately, but spared a glance towards Levy and Lucy, her curiosity a bright thing in her eyes. Her fins were of a dark blue colour fading to alabaster, and her hair fanned out behind her, moving with the water like waves in their own right. It was darker than Levy's; much like her own hair was the colour of the water closest to the sun, the sharkmaid's was like that closer to the ocean floor, a deep royal blue.

She was exceedingly beautiful, Levy found, in that haunting way of the sharkfolk.

"Master Jose," she said at length, as she turned her attention to the saw-shark. "His Majesty will be another hour. Juvia has been asked to care for the mermaids in the mean time."

Jose's frown was sharp. "Oh." He threw an accusing look towards Levy, as though it was somehow her fault. "Very well." He motioned with his hands, and his goons swam forward, dragging the mermaids with them. "I will be waiting here to bring them back."

The sharkmaid bowed her head. "Juvia will inform His Majesty." And without another word or glance, she turned to swim towards the palace gate, leaving Jose where he was. The goons made to follow.

"Good riddance," Lucy muttered in a low tone when they'd put some distance between them, and Levy cut her a panicked look, which she promptly ignored.

But the guards either didn't care, or hadn't heard, for they didn't so much as pause as they followed after the sharkmaid. Passing through the main gate, they crossed the courtyard, before they were led down a winding corridor. Levy had to strain her neck to get a good look at her surroundings, but didn't get a chance to see much before they'd stopped before a nondescript door in what appeared to be one in a number of identical corridors. _How the depths do they navigate this place? _

"They'll wait here," the sharkmaid announced, and without undue pause Jose's goons shoved them inside.

"Hey!" Lucy protested. "A little care wouldn't kill you!"

"_Luce_," Levy hissed.

The sharkmaid looked at them, head titled to the side. "Juvia is curious," she said simply, but if Levy thought she was getting anything else, she was disappointed. With a flick of her wrist, the two goons settled in front of the door, with what seemed like no intention to leave. Juvia nodded towards them, head bowed in a surprisingly polite gesture. "You will be called in an hour. Excuse Juvia."

Then she turned to swim away, and the door was promptly closed in their faces.

Lucy clenched her fists. "Oooh!"

Levy hummed her agreement, and threw a look around the room. It didn't look like much – it had a small sitting area, and some shelves with trinkets. A single door stood, invitingly, at the back.

She pursed her lips.

"Lev, what are you doing?"

She didn't answer as she swam towards it, testing the doorknob only to find it locked. She peered through the keyhole, then looked towards the nearest shelf. An idea forming in her mind, she moved towards it, rifling through the trinkets. _I'll need something sharp and pointy. _

"Levy. Seriously. What are you _doing_?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?"

"_Oh_ I don't know, looting? Which will do us no good, as we can't even escape with ourselves. I know you're fond of treasures, but there really is such a thing as a time and a place–"

Levy cut her a sidelong look. "I'm not _looting_, I'm looking for a lock-pick...ha! Here." Holding it out towards her, she allowed Lucy to see what she'd found – it looked like a hair-ornament of some sort, fashioned from some kind of metal. Human-made, most likely, but just what she needed. She swam back to the door.

Lucy blinked. Then she frowned. "You do realize the palace is _surrounded_ by guards?"

Levy didn't turn to respond, "Yup."

Lucy swam closer. "And that we have no idea how to get out of this kingdom, let alone the palace grounds?"

"It's a bit of a stretch, yeah."

Lucy rubbed at her brow. "So what are you doing with that lock-pick, exactly?"

A twist of her wrist, and the lock came away with a pleasing _click, _and Levy turned to her friend with a grin. Lucy was watching the now open door warily, as though expecting guards to come bursting through at any moment. Levy reached for her hand. "Look. I heard something yesterday," she said. "Before that guard interrupted me."

Lucy frowned. "You were Listening?"

Levy nodded. "That shark...the prince. He was talking to the warden." She lowered her voice. "They're planning a coup."

Lucy's eyes widened. "_What_?" she hissed. "You're telling me we landed ourselves in the middle of a plot to overthrow the _king_?" She groaned. "This is just perfect."

"And I want to help."

Lucy's gaze snapped to hers, brows shooting towards her hairline. "_What_ was that? Levy," she said, disbelief colouring her voice. "He's a _shark_."

"But they're not so different from us, are they?" Levy protested. "You've seen it for yourself."

Lucy didn't respond to that, so she pressed on, "I just...I feel like I should help. I don't know how or even why...I just feel that I _should._" It was a lie – she knew why. It had been something in his voice when he'd talked about the king, and that tiredness she'd seen in his eyes that she hadn't been able to pinpoint the cause for when she'd first met him. But she didn't know if Lucy would understand.

"It's not your problem, Lev," she stressed. "And you don't even know why they're planning it. I mean, for all we know _they_ could be the bad guys here!"

Levy shook her head. "I don't think so."

Lucy looked at her a long time, brows drawn together in thought. She wanted to protest, Levy could tell, and she did have a point – it wasn't their business, or even their kingdom. The state affairs of the shark people was something she hadn't given a second thought up until the day before, and if she was smart, she'd stay put until they could find a way to escape. Or reason with the king so he'd allow them to leave peacefully.

But something told her he wouldn't be letting anyone go, like the memory of the way Jose said _His Majesty, _and the look on the prince's face when he'd been named nephew in front of them. None of which pointed towards a kind and caring king – the sort who'd listen to what they had to say, like King Makarov might have if their roles had been reversed.

"So, what are you going to do?"

Levy looked up, surprised, but Lucy only offered a wry smile. "I can see I'm not going to be able to talk you out of this, so I'm at least going to make sure you've got a plan before you act."

Levy looked at the door. She didn't know where it led, or even if it would lead anywhere at all. "I don't know," she said at length. Being stuck in that cell had made her restless – she needed to do _something_. "I'll figure it out as I go. Maybe I'll just have a look around, or see if I can't find out anything useful."

The truth was, she was hoping to find something that could tell her why the merfolk had created the border. Maybe if she found an archive, she could get some answers. If it could help enlighten her about why the border had been made in the first place, maybe she could aid the prince in taking back his kingdom, or at least try to mend things between their people.

It all seemed a little grand when she thought about it, but she decided not to let her mind linger too long on the details, focusing instead on her new quest: finding information, whatever that might be.

Lucy's silence was answer enough to what she thought about her rather obvious _lack_ of plan, but she didn't argue. Instead she asked, "What if that shark-girl comes back?"

Levy shook her head. "She said it would be at least an hour, and I'll be back long before then." She tried to smile, her hand curling around the doorknob to open it. "It'll be _fine_, Luce. Just stay here until I get back, okay?"

Lucy didn't offer any more protests, but her worried gaze was the last Levy saw before the door was shut, and she was once again shrouded in darkness.

She didn't look back as she moved through the dark, towards the pools of light seeping out of the lanterns that lined the corridors on every side. There seemed to be relatively few guards posted in the palace interior, and so she encountered little trouble as she gingerly made her exploratory journey through the curving halls of the shark king's residence. She tried a few doors, some she found locked while others yielded to her efforts, and the hair-ornament still in her grip. But all that met her eyes were empty rooms that looked like they hadn't been used in years. She found no repository or archive, or anything that indicated that there even was one to be found.

Then, out of the silence – a voice.

It was muffled, but by Listening closely she found the source, situated behind a large set of double-doors at the end of one of the corridors. She swam closer to press her ear against the stone, closing her eyes as she Listened again.

"–_know about the coup," _the voice spoke, a dark drum through the door and into her ears, and her eyes shot open at the words. _"He is my brother's spawn, and entirely too righteous for his own good. To even for a second think that revenge has not been on his mind would be folly. No, I've been aware of his plans for some time." _

Another voice answered, _"What will you do with him, my King?"_

A derisive snort, _"Let the brat think he's got me played for a fool. He'll know the cost of crossing me in due time. Him, and whatever sea urchins he's found to help him. That prison warden, for instance–" _

Levy drew back from the door – _the door leading to the king's chamber – _like she'd been struck. Her fear sat like a stone in her chest, and she turned, the realization of what she'd just been made privy to racing along her veins like ice, pushing her forward.

She had to hurry!

She tried to remember the route she'd used, but the corridors all looked the same, and she felt her panic rise as she turned a corner, only to find herself in another identical hallway. But she swam on, eyes on the lookout for something – _anything_ that could help her figure out where she was and where she was going. And the more time she spent, the more she panicked, the distress only adding to that which she already felt on behalf of the prince. The prince she had to warn – she had to find him and tell him that his uncle _knew_–

But if the sharkmaid came back and found only Lucy...

She was so caught up in her own thoughts, she wasn't watching where she was going, and when she rounded the corner she collided with something sturdy, sending her reeling backwards through the water. Something closed around her wrist, _pulling_, and it kept her from crashing into the wall.

She glanced up, heart in her throat and an excuse at the tip of her tongue–

Garnet eyes glared down at her, wild with anger. "The hell are _you_ doing here?"

–only to once again find herself face-to-face with the prince.

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AN: If you for some reason haven't already, do make sure you check out rboz's illustrations; they are nothing short of divine!


	5. plans wrought in dark places

AN: I've been so blessed this week: both **rboz** and **blanania** have drawn some hands down _amazing_ pieces, I can't express properly how utterly blown away I am by your collective talent and graciousness! You're both so lovely, and I'm forever humbled by your wonderful skill and art. Be sure to check out their work (you may note the new cover image as Grace's/blanania's!).

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**Chapter 5**

Gajeel really wanted to give her a good, thorough _shake_, because hadn't she learned already what you got from lurking around in places you weren't supposed to? It was what had gotten her into this mess in the first place, and he'd figured they'd at least stay out of trouble in Lily's prison. _Turned my back for one bloody minute. _

He tried to let his disapproval show on his face, but she seemed too distressed to take note, and just as he'd been about to open his mouth and repeat himself, she blurted, "Your uncle knows!" Then she snapped her mouth shut, and threw a panicked glance around them, as though she'd somehow revealed a great secret. Gajeel didn't know what they'd fed her in that prison cell, but she was acting like she was high off some colourful anemone toxin. _And talkin' like it. _

"You ill or something?" he asked, as he tugged her closer to get a better view of her eyes, wide and frightened in her face. He looked towards the direction she'd come – _the throne room? – _and frowned. "The king wouldn't have let ya out here on yer own without an escort."

She glanced away quickly, guilt flashing across her features. "I'm...not really supposed to be here."

He snorted. "No shit. Thought you'd have learned by now."

She shook her head. "What I'm doing here isn't the point," she stressed. "He _knows._" She peered into his face. "About your plan?" When he only stared back blankly, she lowered her voice to a desperate whisper. "The _coup_?"

Now _that_ caught his attention – the words like passing through a cold current, it froze the blood in his veins.

"_**What**?" _

She didn't get a chance to answer, when he suddenly pulled her with him down the empty corridor, towards one of the many empty rooms that sat forever vacant in the royal wing. During his father's rule, the palace had always been full, of both visitors or servants. His uncle on the other hand, was a notoriously paranoid shark, and would only have a small hand-picked staff, and no guests were allowed to stay the night for fear of assassination.

The room he shoved the mermaid into now was one of the many lounges once used to entertain such guests, with a small sitting area and shelves holding items that had long since begun to rust or gather barnacles, for lack of care and cleaning. She yelped as he let her go, to spare a quick glance down the corridor to make sure they weren't followed. Then he shut the door, and to be on the safe side, turned the lock.

When he turned around, she was across the room, and though her concern was clear on her face, there was now an underlying layer of wary suspicion as well. The bright sun-yellow gold of her scales seemed dulled in the shadows, and he was once again reminded how much she didn't belong there, in the dark home of his people. He wondered briefly if she would soon begin reacting to the lack of light – he'd heard mentions of it, in history lessons forced upon him in his youth. Of wars fought long ago, where prisoners of the merfolk's forces were deprived of sunlight until they dwindled away slowly in their cells. For someone who'd spent his entire life in the dark, such a vitalneed of sunlightseemed an odd weakness.

But looking at her now, it also made him uncomfortable – the thought of her in that cell, withering away in the shadows until her scales lost their gleam completely.

He shoved the image away, and turned his mind back to her words in the corridor. "Say that again," he ordered. "You said–" he stopped himself, mind latching onto something he hadn't considered. "Wait, how do you even know I'm planning one?"

She bit her lip, and seemed to consider whether or not to tell him. Then, "I...uh, I have an ability." Her hands wrung nervously at her front. "Back...back where I'm from I work with something called Collecting. We store sound in sea shells...I don't know if you do the same here."

By the look on his face, she must have gathered that they didn't, and so she continued. "One of the skills we learn is Listening – ah, it gives us better hearing than most." She looked away. "I overheard you talking to the warden yesterday. And...just now I used it on the king."

Gajeel could only stare, unable to grasp exactly what she was saying. He'd known the merfolk had secret arts, the link to which had been severed when the border had been created. They still had some sea shells in the palace repository, though his uncle had forbidden all access to it years ago, for fear that someone would suggest mending matters with the mer-king. _Not likely, so long as he's on the throne. _

The mermaid swam a bit closer, and Gajeel jerked, startled by the sudden movement. She drew her hand back. "I'm sorry!"

He looked at her, and found honesty on her face. A rare thing, for someone who spent as much time as Gajeel did with people of his uncle's ilk – people like Jose. "What did you hear?" he asked then, after a lull.

She hesitated. "The warden– he...he suspects you're working with him." Gajeel went cold again. _Shit._ "He didn't say what he was planning on doing or when, just that...you'd know the consequences of plotting against him."

He spat an oath, turning towards the door, then back again. It certainly sounded like something his uncle would say, and why would she lie? She had no personal investment in his affairs, and it wasn't something she could have made up from the top of her head – it was too close to home. He should have suspected Acnologia would catch on, but they'd been _careful, _damn it! He'd only included three sharks, and Juvia was the only one beside Gajeel with connections to the palace, but she'd never have uttered a word about it to anyone. He tried to think of ways his uncle could have found out – placed he might have let something slip, but came up blank.

But it didn't really matter how the news had gotten back to his uncle. What mattered was that he knew, and more importantly, how they were going to go about their plan now.

He looked at the mermaid again, some of his irritation at her reckless eavesdropping fading as he considered the help she'd given him. And her expression further convinced him that she was telling the truth, because he could practically see the curiosity in her eyes – the one that had driven her to do what she'd done, no doubt. But she couldn't have overheard much more than what she'd told him.

"You can ask," he said then. "About why I'm after the throne."

She bit her lip, and for a moment he thought she might keep quiet out of sheer stubbornness. Then– "Why are you? I mean, I think I _might_ know, but I'm...not really sure how your system works, and I don't want to assume anything."

Gajeel held back a snort; for having such blatant disrespect of country borders and orders to stay put, she was a polite little thing. "My old man used to be the king," he explained. "He was the eldest, and the heir to the throne."

She frowned. "But...what about you? Wouldn't that make you his natural successor?"

He nodded. "'S a long story."

She surprised him then, by smiling. "I don't mind."

Gajeel regarded her for a moment – the flickering underwater shadows playing over her features, and the honesty he couldn't quite get used to, clear as anything on her face. It was a little unnerving. But, with only a second of hesitation for his own benefit, he told her – everything. The accident that had been the start of it all; the massive squid that had been causing trouble in the outskirts of the kingdom, and how his father and uncle had set out to take care of it. How only his uncle had come back, and since Gajeel had been too young to take the throne, his mother had taken over as regent in his father's place.

He still remembered her face, the image clear like still water behind his eyes. He could picture the dark fall of her hair and the clever tilt to her green eyes. She'd been lovely and strong, the picture of health, but one day...

"She died. Got ill, out of nowhere. A week and she was gone." He watched the mermaid's face fall at the words, and felt his hands tighten where he held them crossed over his chest. His mother had been suspicious of his uncle from the start, but Gajeel had been too young at the time to question the way she'd passed, or the fact that his uncle had so effortlessly taken the throne before they'd even granted her the rites.

"I was older when I found out what'd really happened," he said gruffly. The memory still stung – his uncle's voice, talking about the murder as though he hadn't just killed his late brother's wife, told in cold, casual tones like discussing the removal of persistent barnacles from the palace's outer walls.

"I was just a pup, so he got the throne." His hands curled to fists, tightened until his nails dug into his palms. "And he's still on it." He couldn't have kept the bitterness out of his voice if he'd tried, but with all he'd told her, what use was hiding what he really felt? She already knew he was planning to usurp his uncle. _Is there anyone in this bloody palace who doesn't know by now? _

It struck him then, that if she wanted to, she could barter her knowledge for a release, but looking at her, and the sincerity in her eyes even the dark didn't seem to be able to snuff out, Gajeel had a feeling that she wouldn't.

But something still seemed amiss. "Why d'you tell me?"

She blinked. "What?"

He let his hands fall to rest against his sides. "Why did you tell me about what you'd heard? Everything I've told you now could be a lie. He could be the rightful heir to the throne, and I could be the jealous nephew." He cocked his head to the side, and watched a number of expressions flicker across her face, and marvelled again how easy it was to read emotion on a mermaid.

At last, she settled on something soft, but with a hidden determination that surprised him. "I might not know you very well," she said then, as she swam forward hesitantly. He didn't flinch this time. "But I'm a pretty good judge of character. And based on how we've been treated so far, I'm a little inclined to believe your current king isn't the best sort."

He snorted. "Yeah."

She chewed on her lip, and for a moment it seemed like she was about to reach out, but she drew her hand back with a jerk, keeping it at her side. Gajeel watched her fingers curl inwards, to press against her palm restlessly.

Then her eyes flew wide open. "Oh no!" New panic raced across her face as she looked up to meet his eyes. "I'm supposed to be back where they're keeping us. That sharkmaid was going to take us to see the king, and she's–"

"_Relax._" Gajeel smirked, as confusion replaced her distress. "Juvia's a _friend._" He put special emphasis on the word, to make his meaning unmissable.

Her eyes widened, and understanding dawned. "Oh. _Oh._"

Gajeel turned for the door. "I'll take ya back," he said gruffly, as he unlocked it. A quick look down the corridor confirmed it empty, and he motioned for her to follow. On his side or not, it would be on Juvia's head if she didn't bring the mermaids before his uncle in time.

He was surprised to find the mermaid keeping close by as they made their way down the curving hallway; he'd have figured she'd keep her distance, after he'd all but dragged her to prison at Jose's behest. But her arm brushed against his fin, and it was Gajeel who startled at the contact. She only hid a smile, and pointed in the direction she'd come from, until she'd led him to a back door allowing access to one of the lounges he hadn't thought was still in use.

"It's here," she said, and made a strange noise at the back of her throat when Gajeel didn't waste a moment in pushing past her to open the door – "_Wait_–!"

–only to reveal a very familiar, _very_ pink head of hair waiting for him on the other side. "Found her," Natsu announced, as he turned back to the fair-haired mermaid, who looked just about ready to burst a bubble.

"_Levy_," she hissed, as she swam forward – _that was her name_ – to grab the smaller mermaid by the arm. "What took you so long?"

"I'm sorry! I' so, _so_ sorry, Luce, I ran into–" she looked at Gajeel. "Him," she finished lamely.

Gajeel received an entirely unamused look from the other mermaid, but before she could say anything, Natsu had pushed between them. "Uh, not to interrupt or anything, but Juvia's done all she can to stall them sending out a search party. So if you don't mind?"

Gajeel nodded, and as Natsu swam back to open the door, he slipped out of sight of the guards. Juvia popped her head into the open doorway. "We found her," Natsu announced again, this time with a toothy grin. "Nothing to worry about, she just got lost looking for the, uh..."

"The ladies' room!" the tiny mermaid supplied with a squeak. "I have– I have a nervous bladder."

The golden haired mermaid looked away at that, and Gajeel stifled a snort. But the guards seemed no more suspicious than usual, and Juvia's expression hadn't budged. She glanced at the guards. "Juvia told you," she said simply, before she swam inside. "Juvia will be a moment."

Then she shut the door in their faces.

Turning around, she levelled Gajeel with a look. "Gajeel will tell Juvia what is going on." And he marvelled silently that he could be king and she'd still boss him around like she'd done when they were pups.

He held back a long-suffering sigh, and the oncoming headache as four pairs of questioning eyes turned to him for answers. And he wondered, with an almost detached sort of humour, that two days ago things had been _normal._ Well, as normal as it got when you were trying to juggle being prince and planning to usurp your own uncle. Now he was sharing his plans with mermaids, who'd up until two days ago been little but a colourful myth.

"He knows about the plan," he said then, looking up to meet the sharkmaid's gaze. Her eyes widened.

"_What_?" It was Natsu who reacted verbally, unsurprisingly. "How?"

Gajeel looked at the little one – Levy, her friend had called her. At his attention, she looked away, visibly embarrassed. "_Someone_ was off eavesdropping."

Lucy crossed her arms over her chest. "You said you weren't going to do anything dangerous."

Levy huffed. "It wasn't dangerous – I wasn't caught!"

Gajeel snorted. "Beggin' to differ, shortfin."

"_Short_–"

"Gajeel," Juvia interrupted her with an apologetic look. "Jose will be wondering where the mermaids are. Juvia said she would bring them within the hour."

"But we can't just send 'em off – he knows about the coup!" Natsu protested.

"And there ain't much we can do about that right now," Gajeel countered.

Juvia nodded. "Juvia thinks the best thing to do is pretend nothing is amiss. Gajeel should not let His Majesty–" her face fell suddenly. "Juvia is sorry – Juvia didn't mean–"

Gajeel placed a hand on her shoulder before she swallowed her own tongue. "_Calm down_, I ain't mad. He's still the king – you can call him Majesty if ya want." It had to be hard not to, working in the palace as she did. She was under the same amount of scrutiny as he was; he didn't blame her for adapting to her job.

She nodded, hesitantly. "Juvia is so–" but stopped when she caught his warning look. "Juvia will do as Juvia pleases," she said then, as she squared her shoulders. She looked at the mermaids, who'd watched the exchange with curious eyes. "Juvia will take you to see the king now." She paused, and added, "If Juvia does not, Acnologia will be suspicious."

They shared a worried look, but Levy nodded. "Yeah." She looked at Gajeel. "Will you be okay?"

He wondered how in the depths she could manage concern for _him_ when she was about to be put before his uncle, but he shoved the thought away in favour of a gruff nod. "I'll be fine."

The look on her face was dubious, but she returned the nod, and moved to swim past him to join Juvia now waiting by the door. An impulse struck him then, and before she'd passed him completely he'd reached out to catch her hand, like he'd done when they'd first met, though his fingers curled loose now around the delicate wrist beneath her warm skin, so thin compared to his own. He could almost see the white of the bone beneath it.

Her head whipped up, and her eyes were wide with her surprise. But Gajeel didn't turn his gaze away, and for a moment the room was entirely quiet. Then– "Thanks."

Her cheeks flushed a rosy coral colour, and she nodded hurriedly. Then he released her, and ignored the sly, lingering look the other mermaid offered him as she followed, a knowing smile curled along her mouth. Gajeel pointedly kept his gaze on the other side of the room. He heard Juvia say something, before they were led out, the door closing quickly and quietly behind them, so the guards wouldn't catch sight of Gajeel inside.

When he finally tore his eyes away from the wall, Natsu was staring at him, expression mirroring that of the mermaid. "What was _that_?"

Gajeel grumbled, "Shaddup."

But Natsu's grin wasn't going to be removed that easily. "_Oh_ no, I see what you're doing. A brand new angle on mermaid-shark politics – why keep 'em separate when you can join them?"

"Natsu."

"Think about it – little mermaid-sharks. Mersharks? Whatever, I can see it now: orange fins–"

"_Natsu._"

"–tiny rows of blunt teeth–"

"Natsu, I swear ta Neptune–"

"–a bridge between our people–!"

Gajeel reached out, but the pink shark dodged it with a laugh, before making for the door. "Too slow!" He reached for the doorknob. "But hey, if you can hold off harpooning me for a second, what do you say we go check out what's going on with your uncle?"

Gajeel felt his hands twitch. "I haven't eavesdropped since we were pups."

Natsu grinned. "Yeah, but your uncle's never had an audience with _mermaids._" His expression turned serious then. "Besides, if you want to get them out of here, you might want to know what he plans to do with them."

Gajeel turned his options over in his mind, as Natsu waited by the door. On the one hand, it wouldn't look good if his uncle caught them. The last time that had happened, he'd been dragged by his ear to his room, and confined for a week. His old man had always let him sit beside him when court was in session, but that Acnologia was nothing like his brother was a lesson Gajeel had learned a long time ago.

_Pops would've shown them mercy. _

A sudden thought, slick like oil and just as cloying, seemed to drip down his spine as he considered what his uncle was actually capable of doing to trespassers. Foreign trespassers no less, and from a kingdom he was notoriously suspicious of. _Damn it. _

He looked at Natsu, and nodded. "Fine. Let's do it."

* * *

AN: Shark babies are legitimately called "pups", this is the cutest discovery I've made this year.


	6. Leviathan

AN: SURPRISE! I was on a roll, so I thought I'd give you guys an extra chapter this week. It's a special thank-you for all the lovely comments you've left, and for the wonderful art some of you have made for this story. I am not close to being worthy, but I hope this can somehow convey how happy you guys make me.

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**Chapter 6**

The secret path leading to his uncle's throne room – the chamber used on the rare occasions court was in session, or when Acnologia deemed someone worthy of his time and attention – came in the form of a narrow tunnel almost too small for Gajeel to squeeze through comfortably.

"This used to be easier," Natsu wheezed from behind him, as they edged sideways along the tunnel's length.

Gajeel grunted. "We also used to be a lot smaller_._"

Natsu laughed, then groaned. "Bet you're regretting that hefty breakfast now, huh?"

If he'd been within Gajeel's reach, he'd have given him a smack with his fin for that comment, but as it was he was having trouble moving forward, let alone twisting around.

"Neptune's fork, I regret this now," Natsu muttered. "You know, we might actually get stuck here."

Gajeel groaned. "Don't say it. This was your idea!"

"Well I've had better, okay?!"

"Oh _now_ you're admitting it? _Great. _That would've helped _before_ we entered this damn thing."

"You know what _would_ help us is if you'd move a little faster. I'm collecting barnacles over here!"

Gajeel glared straight ahead as he pushed his way forward, regretting, not for the first time in his life, listening to the coral-head._ Then again_, he reminded himself. There was no other way of knowing what his uncle would do with the mermaids without getting the information second-hand, and then it might already be too late, considering how little information the king usually granted his nephew. If he wanted to be able to keep one step ahead of Acnologia, he'd need to at least _try_, even if it meant resorting to methods he hadn't used since he'd been a reckless pup too curious for his own damn good and sticking his nose into everyone's business.

And so he kept stubbornly pushing onwards, until they at last reached the end of the tunnel where it opened up to allow them access to the upper ring surrounding the throne room. Back in his father's day, it would have been filled to the brim with visitors in court hours, but now it sat, empty and abandoned like most of the palace interior.

They slipped quietly down the row of seats where the upper level curved around the room, headed towards the back, on the level below which sat the throne. Keeping to the shadows, they kept out of sight. The only light came from the crystals placed around the throne room's centre – the upper level was shrouded in darkness. An ideal place to hide, really. Gajeel found it somewhat ironic. For all his paranoia, his uncle left himself wide open to attack.

That was, of course, if you ignored the multiple guards at his back.

Fingers curling around the railing, Gajeel peered down into the room's centre, where the mermaids had been deposited in the middle, one guard on either side and two at their backs. As though they'd had any chance to escape without them, their hands bound as they were, and stuck in a room already full of guards. But as always, his uncle felt the need for a good, exaggerated demonstration of power.

He noticed then that Acnologia was speaking. They must already have been there awhile, which wasn't all that surprising, taken into account the sheer amount of time they'd spent trying to squeeze their way through that blasted passage.

"And your purpose in my kingdom?" his uncle was asking, voice almost bored, as though he'd been approached with a plea for tax reductions and was still deciding whether or not to give it his full attention.

It was Levy who answered. "I came to look at the crystals, y-your Highness. We don't have any like it." She fumbled over the title, and her nervousness was visible even from where Gajeel was hidden.

The king didn't immediately respond, but tilted his head to the side. "I wonder."

Lucy spoke up, then. "We're telling the _truth._ She came to look for crystals, and I came to take her back. That's when you found us. We were on our way, and we'd be long gone if you'd just let us go in the first place!"

Gajeel nearly flinched, knowing from experience that talking to his uncle like that wouldn't get them any favours. But Lucy didn't seem overly concerned, and he felt an odd twinge of respect for the display of tenacity. He hadn't figured the mermaids meek – not judging by the way they'd reacted to what had been thrown at them so far – but they'd never even seen a shark until they'd stumbled into Gajeel, and his uncle had a presence powerful enough to make your tail-fins shake, even for those who knew him.

But his uncle didn't speak up against her cheek, and that's when Gajeel noticed the presence of a certain long-nosed saw-shark at his uncle's side, as Jose leaned in to whisper something in his ear. _Shit! _

"The seashell, with my nephew's image on it," Acnologia drawled then. "Just looking at the crystals, were you?"

The mermaids had nothing to say to that, and Levy looked away. Lucy glared, bound hands fisted at her front, but she stayed silent. Because what was there to say? He didn't doubt for a second that Jose had given him the damn thing to see for himself. Gajeel watched the saw-shark lean in again, speaking too low for him to hear, but he could imagine what it was. An appeal for a stricter sentence, no doubt, grounded in some sort of half-assed accusation of spying on the king's nephew. _Spineless bastard. _

Acnologia was quiet for a long time, seeming to mull his options over in his mind, though Gajeel had never known his uncle for being one for thought and contemplation. He usually made his decisions quickly and decisively, and without a shred of regret to keep him awake at night. He wondered if it wasn't simply for show, though there was only the mermaids and the guards around to see it. For a shark with such a loathing for court and public duties, he garnered a lot of joy from keeping his subjects on tether-hooks.

"Give them to the Leviathan."

The command fell like the strike of a harpoon, and a deafening hush fell over the chamber as Gajeel's blood turned to ice in his veins. He was dimly aware of the muttered oath that fell from Natsu's mouth, but he couldn't draw his eyes away from the throne long enough to tell him to shut it.

_**No.**_

He saw the mermaids look at each other, and could conjure the little one's confused expression without having to actually see her face. _Damn it. Neptune damn it all, what the hell do you think you are you doing, you cold-blooded– _

"What–" her voice seemed small in the silence, but it cut clean through his anger. "What does that mean?"

And Gajeel didn't need to look at his uncle to imagine the cruel twist of his mouth. _What does that mean. What does that mean. _The wavering question seemed to echo shrilly in his ears, and he had to close his eyes in order to focus on something else. Acnologia was talking, explaining, but Gajeel couldn't hear what he was saying. But he could picture it – the sick tradition of his own people that had been banned during his old man's reign. The death sentence had been kinder, then. Quick and simple, with no undue suffering. What his uncle had ordered was no mere death sentence. It was a _curse – _a fate worse than simply dying.

He knew the stories, as did any of his kin. As pups they'd eagerly listened to the tales of the great monster, said to be so massive in size it had once taken a whole army of sharks just to drive it away from the kingdom. It was said to dwell in a pit of the Old King's making – imprisoned by bars wrought of the strongest metal. And magic, from a time where his people had possessed the skill, before the border had separated the kingdom from the merfolk's influence, and had rendered the whole practice nothing more than a legend. But even back during the Old King's days, they'd used to sentence only the worst criminals to Leviathan's Pit – killers and traitors, conspirators and assassins. Not trespassing mermaids.

He couldn't keep track of what was being said, but caught a snippet or two of his uncle's narration, accompanied by an exaggerated flourish. But he knew what he was saying – the words that would no doubt drive any hope from the mermaids' hearts. They'd have their arms and fins bound, and would be thrown into a bottomless depth where it was said to reign a darkness and a silence so suffocating it drove you out of your mind before you'd passed your first hour. If the creature let you live that long.

"Trespassing over the border has long been forbidden," he heard his uncle say then, feeling as though he was submerging from an ice-cold current. "I am only abiding by the law set by those before me. It is unfortunate, but the alternative would be to keep you imprisoned, and that would be a _far_ worse fate in the long run, wouldn't you agree? For creatures like yourselves, so used to being close to the sun. The Leviathan offers a quick death...well, if you are lucky."

Their horror-stricken faces watched the king with disbelief, and Gajeel's fingers tightened around the railing, but he couldn't make himself move. But even if he did, it wouldn't help their situation. It would probably only worsen Gajeel's, and ensure they were all thrown in the pit for his efforts. And so he could only watch, helpless as they were dragged out of the chamber, kicking their tails. Lucy was shouting, but the little one seemed to stare into the water as they were pulled out of the throne room, the golden tip of her tail-fin vanishing through the towering doorway, like a last flicker of light snuffed by the all-encompassing dark of the palace shadows. An eerie symbolism.

Gajeel felt numb, hands pressing down onto the railing with enough force to nearly send cracks through the stone, but then Natsu was there, pulling him away. "Come on!" he hissed, and Gajeel let himself be drawn away, back towards the narrow pathway even as his gleeful uncle sat on his stolen throne, happy as a clam and merciless as the coldest currents of the deep.

"Gajeel! Come on!" Natsu snapped now, and he looked up to meet his eyes in the dark. There was an unfamiliar severity on his usually grinning face, the corners of his mouth turned downwards sharply and his brows drawn together with anger and disbelief.

Gajeel relented, and they made for the hidden passage, their return quiet where their approach had not been. His shoulders were tense, and anger roiled within him at the thought of the injustice his uncle could so easily pass off as honest judgement. He'd long grappled with feeling inept when it came to his father's traitor of a brother, but he didn't now how much more he could take before he lost all semblance of control and threw his plans to the currents for one reckless attempt at the king's life. But he knew it wouldn't do him any good; it was more likely to get him killed sooner, and then what would happen to his old man's legacy? To the mermaids?

They eventually made it out on the other side, and he followed Natsu through the flickering shadows towards one of the walkways leading from the palace interior to one of the connected towers, where Gajeel had his private rooms. They'd need walls without ears, to discuss their new course of action, and how to go about the king's sudden renewal of an age-old punishment that hadn't been executed in decades. If the mermaids were to be thrown to the Leviathan, his uncle would be doing it with an audience. He'd make an event of it, like a twisted celebration. It would be a message to the mer-king, no doubt still unaware of the plight of two of his subjects.

And it was as good a declaration of war as Gajeel had ever seen.

Natsu said nothing as they swam, but his hand on Gajeel's shoulder pulled him away from his thoughts, to the sight of Juvia swimming towards them down the walkway, an anxious twitch to her fins. "There you are! Juvia has been looking everywhere!" Her grief was vivid on her face. "The mermaids–"

"We know," Gajeel rasped. "We heard."

She looked between them. Then she glared, and a surprised shout escaped him as she reached out to pinch his arm – "Ow, damn it!" – "And what is Gajeel going to do about it?"

"It's not that simple," he snapped, rubbing his arm. "The depths do ya want me to do, Juvia – kill the sea monster? Or my uncle?" He snorted. "Might as well just throw myself in the pit and be done with it, because that's where I'm headed."

She didn't respond to that, and her own powerlessness shone clear in her bottomless eyes. "Then what do we do?" she pleaded, looking between them. "What does Juvia do?"

Gajeel drew his eyes away – the full force of her gaze had always had that unnerving effect – and directed his attention to the palace courtyard visible below the walkway. It was quiet, empty of life and people. Ghostly, like the sunken human ships littering the outskirts of the kingdom that he'd used to explore when he was younger, along with the two sharks now at his side. That was a long time ago, now. He'd been younger, more idealistic – believing in good always conquering evil and that people ultimately got what they deserved. He'd lived off tales of brave shark-men and legends of mermaids, said to be the most beautiful of Neptune's creatures by some, and the most vicious by others. He'd been a _prince_, then – a true one, heir to the throne and not just his uncle's rebellious tag-along.

He thought of the mermaids, no more vicious than pretty underwater flowers, and entirely undeserving of their sentence. This wouldn't have happened if his father had still been on the throne – or even Gajeel. _You still have a chance to change that. _

He turned away from the courtyard and back to his companions, silent in their private grief. Aside from Pantherlily, there wasn't a shark in the deep he trusted as much as he did them. They'd given up their safety for his personal vendetta years ago, and now they might well have to pay their due. And for what?

_Not without a fight. _"Change of plans," he said then, and his will hardened, his own anger taking shape to a new objective. "I need him off the throne _now._" Then he turned from their surprised expressions, a plan forming in his mind even as he swam towards the doorway. He heard them hurry to catch up, calling after him to wait, but he didn't falter. They had to move quickly if they were to succeed. They'd been dawdling for years, being careful and biding their time, but they no longer had that luxury. His uncle had made the first move, unwittingly or not, that would signal his inevitable downfall. At least if Gajeel had anything to say about it.

_It's time to end this farce of a reign._

* * *

"Your Majesty."

Makarov turned to watch the Captain of the Guard as she swam inside, a warm greeting on the tip of his tongue, though his worry weighed heavy on his shoulders. "Erza, my dear. Do come in."

The Captain let her hand drop from her salute as she cut smoothly through the water towards the balcony, a flash of bright red in his periphery. In the distance, the sun was dipping into the water, throwing a warm glow over the coral-garden. Usually around this time of day, Porlyusica's apprentices would be doing their evening work by the reef closest to the surface, but the bench that was usually occupied sat empty. The Grand Archivist would be in the repository, no doubt, as she had been the two days that had passed since her eldest apprentice's disappearance.

"Any news?" he asked, though from her silence he knew there wouldn't be.

He didn't look at her as she shook her head. "We've looked everywhere, Sire. There's no trace of them, not in the palace or the city." She hesitated. "I've sent out parties in search along the border, and the surrounding villages. I...hope for better news on the morrow."

"They're not in my kingdom," Makarov told her, his words as heavy as his heart. "I can feel it."

Erza was silent, and issued no reply to his declaration, but he'd known her since her minnow days and knew to read her silence for what it was. Her shoulders were tense, and her eyes brimming with exhaustion she wouldn't admit.

"Be honest, Erza," the mer-king said then. "You know where they are."

She nodded. "Aye. I am afraid so."

"Then hope is the only thing we can do for them. It is out of our hands."

The Captain nodded brusquely, her silence fierce with her disagreement. "Aye, Sire," she acquiesced, and he noted her fingers curl to fists where they rested at her back. When he looked towards her she was staring out across the seascape beyond the coral-garden, in the direction of Teeth's Edge. "_Hope._"

Makarov hummed. "Of course, the same would go for any of my people venturing over the border. I wouldn't be able to act, even to stop them."

She paused, and he heard the uncertainty in her voice. "Sire?"

He met her eyes, and watched as understanding settled in them. She nodded. "I understand. I'll make sure to let my men know. Or, perhaps only one or two will do?"

Makarov nodded. "One or two is more than enough, I should think. And do remember to remind them of my powerlessness, should they find themselves on the other side. Oh, and tell them that if they were to leave and come back without my knowledge..." he trailed off with a shrug. "There's really nothing I can do about that, either. Quiet vexing, really, but you know these old laws. You'd need solid evidence of their violation to put them before the court. Without it..."

Erza bowed. "Duly noted, Sire." A knowing smile lurked along her mouth, but it was gone as quick as it had appeared. "I'll take my leave of you now." She nodded once as she turned to make for the doorway.

"Best of luck, my dear," he called after her, not taking his eyes off the empty coral-garden, and the lone bench by the furthermost reef. And despite the worry cold and heavy in his bones, a smile pulled at the corner of his mouth.

"Poseidon's blessing on your _search._"

* * *

AN: Makarov, you sly merman. And the Leviathan is a sea monster from the Old Testament, but it's a recurring creature in a lot of modern fiction.


	7. an unlikely alliance

AN: A late chapter this week, but I hope you'll enjoy it, regardless. I try to update every two weeks, but if I'm really swamped chapters might be a few days late, but I hope that's okay. Thank you all for your patience, and for your support so far!

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**Chapter 7**

"So this is where those freaky sharp-fins live, huh?" A snort followed the observation. "Talk about a bleak place – you can't even see the sun at this depth."

Erza made a motion for her companion to lower her voice, but Cana seemed too preoccupied with her surroundings to make note. A tap to her shoulder did it, as Gray swam up to her side. "_Oye_, Cana, clench your gills, would you? Do you want them to find us or something?"

She rolled her eyes. "There's nobody around for a Poseidon-damned _league, _Fullbuster_._ Who's here to find us?" She waved at the open waters, silent in the darkness that seemed to permeate the place, making it near impossible to tell what time it was.

Erza took a moment to consider the wisdom of her choice in bringing these two in particular with her over the border, but someone had to stay back at the palace and do her job while she was off, swimming in foreign waters on a fool's errand. Her Lieutenant had been her first choice, of course, though arguably, Jellal was also her first choice in who to take _with_ her. But when it came to defying laws, in which she might well not make it back alive, Erza wouldn't have felt quite as unconcerned having left her job in anyone else's hands.

"If you _both_ keep talking, they'll be upon us before we've even reached the city." She shot her Second Lieutenant a look of warning, and he effectively clamped his mouth shut.

The humour fled off Cana's face, too. "Noted, Cap." She threw a glare in Gray's direction. "Who was it that needed to clench their gills?" she muttered in low tones, to which the merman responded with an obscene gesture.

Erza turned on them both. "I will shove you both _tails first_ back through the tunnel and go on alone. Is that what you want?" she asked, her voice a calm sea, perfectly mellow.

Gray swallowed. "N-no, ma'am."

"Good." She turned back, gaze spanning the underwater scenery that stretched onwards into the dark, the shadows lit by the soft glow of the strange, green crystals that seemed to pop up wherever she looked. _Must be how they handle being so far from the sun. _

Cana swam up to her side. "Orders, Cap?"

Erza passed restless fingers along the skin of her arms, bare of her usual arm-guards. She'd left all her armour back at the palace, save a thin mail of scales, for the simple necessity of speed, in case they needed to get back over the border quickly. Her full set would have weighed her down too much, but without it she felt oddly exposed. "We find them, wherever they're being kept, and then we get back across the border without causing undue trouble. And preferably without being seen."

The dark-haired mermaid at her side snorted, a sign of disrespect for any other commander, but Erza had always liked Cana's blunt honesty. "And what are the odds of that happening?"

Erza offered a thin smile. "Slim, at best. It depends on where they're being kept, for one. And how well we'll manage to stay out of sight." She looked down at her tail, the silver colour bright against the dim black-and-green that seemed to be the two predominant colours in the sharkfolk kingdom. She'd never thought of her own colouring as particularly eye-catching until now, but with her hair, she might as well parade herself into the capitol and be done with it.

She glanced over at her Second Lieutenant, and the royal blue scales that seemed to stand out even in the underwater darkness. It was safe to say that they wouldn't exactly blend in. Only Cana, with her dark hair and dark green scales, wasn't immediately noticeable.

"How does it look?" It was Gray who asked, as he swam forward to join them. They'd come to a stop behind a large jutting stone rising out of the ocean floor, a poor attempt to keep out of sight as they planned their next move.

"Looks clear," she said carefully, though she didn't gesture for them to move forward. It wouldn't do them any good to be caught by a border patrol after they'd just barely crossed it. Not that Erza had seen sign of any since they'd arrived. Perhaps they thought the skeletons at the tunnel entrance served as a fair enough warning for anyone thinking about trespassing.

_Obviously, that didn't work. _She had no idea what had possessed level-headed Levy, the Grand Archivist's most promising apprentice, to even go over the border in the first place. And for Lucy to follow? Well, the latter wasn't too hard to swallow, if Lucy had gone to get her back. Erza couldn't think of anything that would have warranted the two going together, to do something that was such a painfully obvious breach of the law. But at the same time, she didn't want to think about the implications of the two having been kidnapped on the merfolk side.

_War, _the thought lurked, dark and ominous at the back of her mind. If the ruler of the sharkfolk, whoever that was these days, had sent someone over to capture mermaids, Makarov wouldn't stand for it. This, too, was Erza's mission, but she hadn't told this to her companions. If they were on the brink of a potential war with the sharkfolk, they would have to proceed with care. And if it did in fact turn out to be the mermaids' own fault, and that they'd been caught trespassing...

"_Damage control, my dear. That is why it is crucial that **you** go. Your gift of diplomacy will aid you well, should you need it." _

She remembered well the old mer-king's words before they'd left for the border, under the cover of darkness, so as not to alert anyone to the nature of their mission. Aside from King Makarov, only three other people knew where they'd been sent and why. Of her Royal Guard it was only Jellal, and at Makarov's insistence, the General of the Royal Army had been briefed as well. Being who he was, Gildarts had offered to go in her stead, but Makarov had stressed the importance of stealth, and that if they turned out to be in the wrong, Erza would be their best shot at avoiding a full-out war. Not to mention, sending his top General wouldn't exactly incite a feeling of friendship, if they were caught and tried before the shark-king. Better it be three, nondescript merpeople looking for their friends.

"Do we even know where we're going?" Cana asked, drawing her eyes back from the shadows to meet Erza's. "I mean, they could be anywhere. Would they take them to see the king, you think?"

"It's hard to say. But with luck, they'll have taken them to the capitol," Erza said.

"And that helps us how?" Gray crossed his arms. "We still don't know which direction to go in."

Erza hummed. "_You_ don't. I've studied maps."

Cana blinked, before her brows drew together. "Maps? We have _maps_ of this place?"

"The kingdoms weren't always separate," Erza reminded her. "The maps are considered relics, and they've been kept out of the public's reach for a reason."

"To keep people from wanting to go over the border," Gray supplied. "Smart. Make it seem inaccessible, and you'd think twice before crossing."

"How in the depths did you get past the old hag to see them?" Cana asked, an incredulous grin stretching over her face now. "I can't believe she'd just show them to you. Old 'Luyusica barely lets anyone into the repository." She peered closer. "You wouldn't have _broken_ in." But by her tone, she wasn't entirely sure.

Erza smiled. "One of the Grand Archivist's apprentices is missing in enemy territory. I only had to _ask._"

Cana smirked. "Well, it makes it easier for us, anyhow. So, which direction?"

Erza looked out over the sprawl of rocks and jutting crystals, and tried to conjure the map she'd studied in her mind. Having been etched on the wall of the royal repository, she hadn't been able to take it with her, and she'd only had a short few hours to memorise it before they'd had to leave. Thankfully her memory was a good one, and it was fresh enough in her mind for her to picture it easily. It wasn't far to the capitol by her own estimation, but distance on a _map_ was one thing, and the terrain was foreign and she had no idea what they could meet on the way. Patrols along the border might not be the king's main priority, but that didn't mean there wouldn't be guards near the city itself, especially if that's where the royal palace was.

_Only one way to find out._ "We head north. Keep at my back, and be on the lookout for sharks. And_ keep quiet_."

Her companions nodded, for once not offering any verbal affirmations, and as Erza pushed out into the dark waters, they followed silently at her back.

From what she remembered from the maps, the capitol wouldn't be far out of their way if they cut a straight path northwards. But the problem wasn't in getting there as much as it was in figuring out where they were keeping Levy and Lucy. They wouldn't hold them at the palace, at least not with the possibility of the two being spies for the mer-king. Erza knew better, of course, but she had no way of knowing what sort of monarch it was that ruled these waters. Makarov hadn't been any wiser – the kingdoms had been separated longer than he'd been on the throne. It was Queen Mavis who'd first created the border, although _why_ the old king had been unable – or perhaps unwilling – to explain. But Erza hadn't needed a history lesson, only the knowledge of how to get there and back, preferably without any casualties, or Poseidon forbid, starting a war.

They proceeded at a slower pace than she'd have liked, but the shifting shadows seemed to have a life of their own, and keeping out of sight of whatever eyes watched from the dark proved a bigger challenge than she'd initially thought. But despite the creeping darkness they weren't discovered – in fact, they met little but skitterish wildlife and clusters of the same, glowing green crystals. Gray and Cana stayed mostly silent, though she doubted their voices would have carried far in the pressing dark that seemed at times like it was solid to the touch. But always there lurked the glow of a green gem in the distance, showing them the way as they swam through tunnel-like rock formations, following the slant of the ocean floor as it delved further down into the deep than Erza had thought possible.

Then at last, she spotted it – the rising spires of an underwater city that could only be one thing.

Holding up a hand in silent command, she dove behind a rock, effectively cloaking her silver tail in shadows. Her companions followed, cutting swiftly and silently through the water.

"That it?" Cana asked softly.

"According to the map, yes. I doubt they've moved it in the last few centuries. It's hard to tell if it's inhabited from this distance, though."

"One of us should scout ahead," Gray suggested. "See if there's a way into the city where we won't be spotted."

Can shook her head. "That'll take forever, can't you see how huge it is? I say we split up to cover more ground."

"And what, get us all caught? No, we send _one_, and whichever of us it is will look for information on where they keep their prisoners. Then when we've got a lead, we'll see where we go from there."

A laugh from above them cut through their bickering. "Interesting plan, but I could make it easy for you and just tell you where they are."

Erza would have liked to think she was past rookie mistakes like being caught off guard, but the new voice almost made her choke on her tongue. Her hands scrabbled at her waist for her dagger, but as she proffered it, the shark looking down at them from the rock above their heads didn't even flinch. She heard Cana and Gray both draw their own weapons, the latter swearing an oath at being taken by surprise in such a way.

An unnervingly warm smile stretched across the dark, scarred face peering down at her. "I apologize. I didn't mean to scare you. Well...maybe a little."

Erza's brows furrowed in a glare. "Explain yourself, shark. Know that if you attack, I won't hesitate to take you down." She raised her dagger, the jagged tip catching the light of the nearest crystal.

The shark looked at it, before following the length of the blade to meet her eyes. "I believe you," he said, sounding much too amused for Erza's liking. "Which is why I won't attack."

"Cap?" Cana muttered in a low tone.

Erza didn't answer immediately, mind racing as she considered the possibilities before them. On the one fin, he was only one shark, and they had the advantage of numbers. On the other fin, if he'd been able to catch them off guard so easily, there might be more of his kind still hiding in the shadows. _Damn it! _

The shark's smile curved wider, to a sharp, toothy grin. "You know, if you make the mistake of thinking you can outwit a shark in his own waters, you _will_ be caught. Best be glad it wasn't by someone else."

Erza didn't lower her dagger. "And why's that?"

"Because any other shark would have handed you over to the king by now," he answered smoothly. He still hadn't reached for his own weapon, though she could see it strapped to his back, a massive blade that looked to be carved from an enormous tooth. And if he could swim so fluidly and gracefully carrying such a weight, she didn't doubt he could draw it if he wanted to and easily block whatever attacks they tried to land on him. But he had his arms crossed over his chest, as though in a silent demonstration that he wasn't about to do anything of the sort. Why, though, Erza didn't know. If she'd caught three armed sharks hiding in merfolk country, she wouldn't have hesitated in drawing her sword.

Cana wasn't so easily charmed. "And you won't?"

He didn't release Erza's gaze as he spoke, "I won't."

"Why?" Gray asked.

This time he did look up, and seemed to assess them each in turn. At length, he finally answered, "Because I know why you're here...and I wish to help."

Cana barked a laugh. "Yeah, we might be tourists, but we're not gonna fall for that. Cap? Oye, _Scarlet._"

Erza said nothing, and didn't take her eyes off the shark as she turned his words over in her mind. "What's your name, shark?"

If her address insulted him, he didn't show it. "Pantherlily," he said, with an easy smile. "But you can call me Lily."

His familiarity unnerved her, but Erza refused to be thrown. "And why should we trust your word, Pantherlily?"

"Because you are merfolk in a kingdom of hungry sharks, and though I'm sure your intentions are nothing but honourable, our _good_ _king_ has no heart for your kind. And trust me when I say you'll need help if you want to save your missing mermaids."

"Where are you keeping them?" Gray pressed.

"They're imprisoned, I can tell you that much," the shark answered. "And on orders of the king, they're to be executed. If you accept my help, I'll tell you where to find them. Better yet, I'll help you get them out."

The sincerity in his voice made Erza's resolve waver, but she still didn't lower her dagger. "Give me one good reason for why you'd go against your king in this way, and we'll consider," she said then. She felt Gray and Cana tense at the declaration, but she held up a hand to still their protests. She would let him speak, if nothing else.

"Because I know someone with whom you share a common interest."

"Who?" Cana sounded dubious, but then Erza didn't blame her. This whole ordeal was fishy.

The dark finned bull-shark didn't miss a beat. "The crown prince."

Erza refused to let her surprise show on her face. "And why would the crown prince care about the fate of a couple of mermaids?"

Her reward was a knowing smile that assured her that, whatever the answer was, he wasn't going to tell her. Her curiosity piqued despite her efforts to stifle it, but the clever gleam in his eyes hinted at something far beyond the simple imprisonment of a pair of mermaids.

_Levy, Lucy, what in the depths have you gotten yourselves into? _

Then his expression turned severe, and the change was such that it made her eyes widen in surprise. The scar cutting across his brow furrowed sharply, giving him a much more menacing look than his earlier smiles had. It would seem his patience was up. That, or he was sensing he wasn't getting anywhere by playing nice.

"You might consider making up your minds," he said, and Erza felt her heart drop at his tone. And there was no laughter in his low drum of a voice now, but rather the promise of something quite different – something that made her wonder if she shouldn't perhaps have brought Jellal with her after all.

"Because we're running out of time."

* * *

AN: For those of you hoping to see Jellal, I'm hope you're not too disappointed, but Erza couldn't just up and leave her post _and_ take her second-in-command with her.


	8. love's folly

AN: And we're back to Levy and Lucy, and their rather sorry predicament. Wouldn't want to be in their...eh, fins.

* * *

**Chapter 8**

She'd lost track of time, she found one day, when she woke up from a fitful slumber to the same darkness she'd fallen asleep to.

"Hey." A hand on her shoulder drew her consciousness fully from sleep, followed by Lucy's smile that had started to look forced, when the days had grown many and long in their cramped little prison cell at the bottom of the sea. "Did you get any sleep?"

Levy rubbed at her eyes, grimacing. "Yeah. Not a lot, though. I...can't seem to dream down here. I don't know what is its, but it's just...emptiness, whenever I close my eyes." That, and the dark. Nothing else. _  
_

"Yeah, I've had that, too. Maybe it's the lack of light? I feel _tired_ a lot, too, even though we haven't moved about much."

Levy nodded her agreement. A morbid thought crawled along the edge of her mind, that they should just get it over with, if they were going to kill them. Why the delay? For the king's amusement, maybe. He hadn't struck her as a particularly sympathetic type. He was nothing like his nephew, that was for sure.

She wondered where Gajeel was. Had he heard about his uncle's command? Being the prince, he should have, but Levy wouldn't put it past the shark-king to keep the news concealed until the very last moment. Although for what purpose, she didn't know. She tried not to let her mind linger on whether or not he was thinking about her – that there was even the slightest chance that he was trying to persuade his uncle to let them go. Thoughts like that would only ensure her disappointment later. He'd helped her out more than once – more than she was due, surely – but that didn't mean anything, did it? It could just be in his character, it didn't mean he'd taken a special interest in her or anything.

Or maybe he had? The traitorous thoughts came so easily in the dark, and the heavy, pressing silence even chatting with Lucy couldn't seem to break through. It was as if the water itself was a weight, and her ears rang with the inconceivable _loudness_ of it. And so she retreated into her mind, it was to questions that left her _hoping._ And hoping was dangerous, especially when you were hoping for a rogue shark-prince you'd met a handful of times and each only for a few minutes. _Get a grip, Levy. _If there was any getting out of the prison, it was by no other hand but their own. She couldn't rely on the whims of a prince she didn't really know, no matter how much she wanted to.

She was drawn from her thoughts by the sound of movement outside the cell, and she looked up to find the warden there flanked by two guards, one of them the pink shark from before. Natsu – _was that his name?_ – wore a strangely grave look, and a deep furrow to his brows that didn't suit him, she found, as she remembered the almost playful grin from his first visit. The warden's expression, however, was impossible to read. She felt Lucy stiffen beside her, but the only thing they did was open the cell door. Levy didn't move from where she sat at the other end of the cell, her back safely against the wall, and neither did Lucy.

"The king demands you answer for your crimes," the bull-shark promptly announced, in a deep rumble that betrayed even less than his expression. "You will be given to the Leviathan, as punishment for breaking the Old Law."

He met Levy's gaze then, and she started at the sudden intensity of the look, before it was gone. "It would be best for all parties if you came quietly."

She met Lucy's look, and it took her only a moment to decide – a flicker of images before her eyes, of a premature death at the hands of the guards – before she pushed away from the wall. She wouldn't die in this prison, she'd sworn that when they'd thrown them in. She'd rather let them give her to the creature – this _Leviathan_ that no one would tell them what was, aside from a legend of some sort. But her imagination could fill in the blanks easily enough, and the king's near reverent look as he'd announced their sentence was indication enough that it was something bad.

She heard Lucy follow, surprisingly quiet – she no doubt wanted to put up a fight, Levy knew, but she wouldn't needlessly endanger them both for the sake of her own pride. They were in this together, that's what she'd said that first night of their imprisonment, and Levy knew her best friend well enough to know that she wouldn't go back on her word, even chained to a stone and thrown to the deep. _Which is probably what they're planning on doing, _she thought, and took a moment to consider the morbid imagery before her mind's eye – a vision of plummeting down to a darkness worse than the prison, one so stifling even her imagination couldn't conjure it.

As they neared the cell door, the warden reached out, rough fingers closing around her arm as he pulled her out the rest of the way. The pink haired shark reached for Lucy, but Levy's view was cut off as she was spun around, and her hands tugged roughly behind her back, to be secured together around the wrists by ropes that felt an awful lot like algae. She bit her lip, tears pressing at the corners of her eyes as she felt another tug, making the bindings almost painfully tight. It would be a miracle indeed if she somehow got her hands free. She'd need a sharp knife, to start with, and they'd confiscated _that_–

Something was pushed into her hand then, and she jerked at the unexpected feeling, before a large hand closed her fingers around it, and she managed to school her face into indifference at the last minute to not let slip the grimace of pain as the thing cut into her palm. Carefully passing the pads of her fingers over a tapered edge, she realized it was a sharpened shell – the kind that her dagger had been made of. She looked up at the warden for an explanation, but he was pointedly looking the other way. And so instead of questioning the gesture, she tucked the shell tightly between her fingers, closing her hand to a fist and ignoring the stinging pain as they were led along the endless row of cells, up from the chasm and towards the entrance to the prison above. The darkness was still prevalent, but the green crystals made it bearable, and she felt something uncoil within her – a relief from the dark so staggering she realized she'd almost forgotten what the feeling felt like.

Her soaring heart fell quickly, however, when she caught sight of who was waiting for them at the prison gates.

Jose the saw-shark welcomed them with a leering grin. "Mermaids," he cooed, and Levy watched Lucy's fingers clench to fists at her back, but her friend didn't say a word, and Levy followed suit. But if their stubborn silence irked him, the long-nosed shark didn't show it. Instead a pleased expression settled across his features – the kind of smug satisfaction that shouldn't by any moral being mark the death sentence of someone else, not even the worst kind of criminals.

His following declaration, dripping with a humour she swore she'd never understand, only served to underline his sick enjoyment.

"Ready for a dip in dark waters?"

* * *

The "dip", Levy came to realize, as they were led to a precipice on the outskirts of the sharkfolk kingdom, was meant in a literal sense.

A crowd had gathered at the edge where the ground suddenly gave way to nothingness – a black, seemingly bottomless pit that grew larger and deeper the closer Levy got to it. It was as if something massive had carved the ground in two, creating a gaping pit cutting straight to the centre of the earth.

The realization that they were meant to be thrown _into_ it only fully dawned on her when the guards began to secure a leather harness around her tail fin, and to the harness – which looked to be an odd, human contraption whose original use was something else entirely – they fastened a stone ring as big as Levy's head._ A weight_, she realized, her thoughts numb with the knowledge of what it was for.

Panic rose within her like a wave, but she couldn't move, shackled to the rock by the weight and with her hands still bound at her back. Her sore fingers clenched against the shell in her palm, and she felt a sob press at her throat. What was she meant to do with it? What had the warden meant by giving it to her? Even if she somehow managed to cut herself loose, it would take time to shear through the harness – time she wouldn't have, no matter how deep the pit was. She'd be at the bottom before she could work herself free, and then there was Lucy to think of, and the–

"Behold. The criminals that have stirred the waters of my kingdom this past week," the king announced then, his voice drawing Levy out of her panicked ramblings. The shark-king was poised at the very edge of the precipice, crown secure on his head and his webbed fingers curled around an embellished trident, the perfect picture of a ruler. Levy felt sick.

He turned towards them, where the guards held them in place some ways off from the gathered crowd, like they were part of some spectator event. "It's the first time a mermaid has crossed the border in centuries," he continued. "And what a shame for it to end this way, but alas, the Old Law must be upheld. Trespassers in the kingdom are to be dealt with accordingly, for the safety of the people. I will not risk our long-standing _peace_, when a war might be brewing as we speak."

Levy wanted to shriek that if any war was brewing, it was of his own making, and that Makarov had no such intentions. But the cheers that met the declaration lodged her protests in her throat, and all she could get out was a half-choked, angry sob.

She glanced at Lucy, and saw raw fury in her eyes, but they were bound and there was no wiggling out of the bonds for her, either. Levy's hand stung where she gripped the sea-shell, and she clenched her fingers around it tighter, the pain acting as a tether for her thoughts as sure as the stone bound to her tail. She couldn't hope to guess the warden's intentions by giving it to her, but she felt helpless with it in her hands, and an escape seemed as far-fetched a thought as the fickle hope that maybe the Leviathan was just a legend after all.

The endless dark of the pit that met her eyes as they were pushed further towards the edge made her heart sink in her chest, to lodge itself in the bottom of her stomach like an anchor. The king was still speaking, and the crowd's murmurs reached her ears like strange noises she couldn't make sense of. She felt light-headed, as though it wasn't happening to her, but to someone else – as though it was just a bizarre dream, wrought of exhaustion and light-deprivation.

But she didn't dream in the dark, and the thought was sobering as a cold current. It wasn't a dream, and they were going to die. The concept didn't seem plausible, despite everything. Even when the king had sentenced them to death, she hadn't felt the severity of the command before now, shackled and perched at the edge of the underwater lair of a legendary beast who'd tear them to shreds in a heartbeat. If they were _lucky._

"May the creature be swift, and your end a merciful one," the king said then, and Levy wanted to – inexplicably – laugh, not because it was funny in any sense of the word, but because the creature would no doubt be just that – merciful, more so than the king, anyway.

She wanted to reach for Lucy's hand, but they were bound as sure as hers, and the simple fact that they weren't even given the courtesy of meeting their end together made her angrier than anything the king had said or done so far. She wanted to scream, but Lucy's eyes met her own, fierce despite their situation. "Lev. I'm here_._" But her voice trembled as she spoke.

Levy held back a sob. "Yeah."

Lucy tried to smile. "What are the odds that this Leviathan is just an oversized seal or something?"

The sob escaped with her laugh. "Pretty slim, I think."

Lucy shrugged sadly. "I'm sorry."

"Luce." She shook her head. She felt the eyes of the crowd on them, and again the thought struck her – _where is the prince? _Not there to rescue them, or he'd have done something already, wouldn't he? "I'm the one who's sorry." She thought back to her decision to go through the tunnel in the first place, and the curiosity that had drawn her deeper and deeper even as her common sense had rebelled against it. If she'd just made it that _one_ journey; if she hadn't insisted on _coming back_...

The king was before them then, looming large and menacing like a legendary creature in his own right, dark hair curling in the water like ink. The family resemblance was unmistakable, and there was no denying that good looks came with that blood, though the grin that slithered along his thin mouth was nothing like his nephew's rare smiles. It was cold; entirely humourless. Even Jose's leers were preferable to this – the smile of someone who considered himself so far above the lives of others, he no doubt considered a death sentence about as morally conflicting as cleaning barnacles off the palace walls.

"It's time. I hope you've made peace with whatever gods your kind worship," he said. "I would have allowed you your last rites, but I can't imagine what blessings Neptune would grant your souls."

Levy didn't offer a response, but he was already turning away, as though he wasn't expecting one in the first place. For some reason the blatant dismissal made her anger roil like a wild thing behind her ribs, and she felt the foreign desire to lash out. If she hadn't been restrained, she wondered if she would have.

One of the guards grabbed her elbow then, and she started, her anger forgotten as another feeling manifested, a fear so crippling she could only let herself be drawn towards the edge, until the dark seemed to want to swallow her up. The following push – the sudden, inexplicable warmth between her shoulder blades before she rocketed forward – seemed an oddly slow thing, and she staggered, the weight of the stone dragging along the rock beneath her.

Then came a shove, the stone pushed free of the edge, and she was _falling_, dragged towards the unknown depths at a sudden, surging speed that had a scream building in her throat, but it fell deaf in the silence that wrapped around her as she plummeted down. The shell in her hand cut into her palm, the pain bringing her back to herself, and she grappled for it until she had it between her fingertips, trying vainly to cut the algae that bound her wrists. With the rock pulling her down and the dark water rushing past her ears, she couldn't concentrate properly, and the shell cut at her hands, but numbed by her panic, Levy didn't notice.

Then she cut through the bindings, the shell flying from her fingers as her hands tore free. She tried to fight against the water, to somehow halt her descent, but she couldn't move her tail and with the weight she had no momentum to propel herself upwards. Glancing up desperately, she found to her alarm that the edge and the crowd had vanished from sight, swallowed by the dark as she kept on falling down, down _down_, and she knew _**this was it**_–

Fingers caught her struggling hands then – a strong, unrelenting grip, and a throaty oath fell into the silence below as Levy's descent was suddenly, _impossibly, _stopped. In the dark, she was completely disoriented, didn't know up from down as she hung suspended in nothingness, but the warmth of familiar skin – _this was no shark_ – pulled at her consciousness, and she looked up, her eyes finding those of her rescuer.

A familiar, cheeky grin reached out to her from the dark, illuminated by a glowing green crystal pendant around a slender neck, and Cana laughed at her flabbergasted look. Her voice was strained by the weight she held, but her good humour bled through into her words. "Didn't think we'd let you two rot down here, did ya?"

"Cana?!" Levy didn't know whether to laugh or weep.

The mermaid grinned, but it faltered, and Levy felt her hands shake where they gripped hers. "In the flesh," she ground out. "Okay girlie, I'm going to need you to help me with this, if we're going to get that bloody death-trap you're wearing off your tail. I'm gonna get below you, so don't lose your head now."

Levy wasn't given the chance to ask what she meant by that, when Cana suddenly let go of her hands, but the scream that slipped out as she fell was knocked out of her as the dark haired mermaid darted in beneath her, cursing as Levy's weight fell over her shoulder.

"I can't hold ya like this very long – grab my knife for me would you?"

Levy didn't know what she meant at first, but then she saw it, fastened at her waist, and she reached down to curl her fingers around the handle. It felt slippery, and she frowned at the sensation, but the painful sting that followed made her remember her frantic attempts at getting the algae off her wrists. How badly was she bleeding?

Without a word of her own pain she handed the dagger to Cana, who got about trying to cut her out of her harness, her voice strained with the weight she was holding up. "Poseidon-damned sharp-fins using human crap for their dirty business gonna skewer them all on tridents and decorate my house with their teeth," she muttered, and Levy felt the tug at the leather harness as she worked at it. Then it suddenly gave away completely, slipping from her tail to disappear amidst the dark, and the sensation of being free of it was such a surge of relief she felt it all the way up her spine and to the back of her skull.

"Better?"

Sliding down from Cana's shoulder, Levy tested the water, and found to her immense joy that she was able to keep afloat by her own strength. "Yeah." She turned to the mermaid. "Cana, your timing couldn't be better, but what in the depths are you doing here?"

Cana sheathed her dagger, a grin flashing in the light of the crystal. "Erza organized a rescue party. Thought I'd tag along."

"Erza did?" She'd left her post at the palace? Had Makarov allowed her?

Cana shrugged. "Well we couldn't just leave you two here. And you know her; Cap likes to take matters into her own hands."

Levy shook her head. "But...how did you find us?" Levy didn't think she'd be able to make it back from the sharkfolk capitol to the tunnel, let alone from the tunnel to the city. How had they managed?

"That old biddy you call Master let Cap look at some map. And your new shark-friends lent us a fin." She laughed. "That dour-looking prince seemed pretty determined to save you," she added slyly, wiggling her eyebrows.

Levy hoped her blush wasn't evident in the dark. "R-really?"

Cana snorted. "Don't play coy, goldie-scales, that crush lit him up like a lighthouse. And I can tell you're blushing."

Levy tried to ignore the surge of pleasure at the words, but her joy didn't last long, as she suddenly remembered, "Oh, no – Lucy!"

"_Relax_." Cana grabbed her shoulders, to keep her still. "Gray's got her." She looked around them, but found only darkness on all sides. "Probable. Somewhere in this pit. Good grief, it's like sound doesn't travel at all down here."

Levy tried to calm her heart, and latched onto the small swell of hope that maybe he'd gotten Lucy out of the pit altogether. She'd barely wrapped her mind around the reality of her own rescue, but she didn't want to get back out only to realize Lucy hadn't made it.

Something passed below them then – a flicker of light and then it was gone. It had looked like a scattering of crystals, a sudden glitter in the dark, and Levy started, abruptly pulled from her musings. "W-what was that?"

Cana looked below, her brow creased. "What?"

Levy tried to look for the flicker of light again, but found only darkness. "Down there...there were lights." She looked up at Cana again, and noted the green crystal suspended around her neck. She pointed at it. "It looked like that. Just...a lot of them."

Cana frowned, and looked like she was about to say something when her gaze was drawn by Levy's hand, still pointed at the crystal. She made a grab for it, and turned it, palm upwards. "Sweets are you _bleeding_?"

Levy looked at her hand then, and the jagged cuts visible in the dim crystal-light, but her reply was cut off when she saw the lights again, this time closer. "There it is!" she said, pointing down into the dark. "What–"

A cold current pushed against them then – like something massive had just stirred the water. A shudder raced along her skin.

Cana's curse was a sudden, vicious thing. "The blood! Shit, the scent must have travelled!"

And then Levy saw it – an enormous dark shape riddled with green crystals, like part of the ground had come loose and was moving on its own, flickering in and out of sight in the dark below them as it passed behind jutting rocks too dark for Levy's eyes to distinguish.

"Cana...I think we need to get out of here..."

A rumble – _a growl?_ – like the distant sound of thunder from Above, and from the darkness, the lightning flash of a row of huge, jagged teeth.

"**_N_**_**ow**_!"

* * *

A flash of silver-and-scarlet at the corner of his vision told him Red had drawn her blade, and he proffered his fists, the iron knuckles wrapped round his hands gleaming in the green crystal-light as he faced off before his uncle and the crowd gathered at Leviathan's Edge.

"Nephew," Acnologia drawled. His eyes flickered to the mermaid at his side, and a grimace tugged at his expression. "Cavorting with merfolk again? A bad habit you've gotten." His mouth curved – the smirk so eerily reminiscent of his old man's it made his hands clench. Then it vanished. "But I'm afraid your rescue party is a little late. Your mermaids are long gone."

Gajeel resisted glancing back over the edge to where the mermaids had fallen, vowing that if Red's friends hadn't managed to catch them, he'd skewer the lot. But she'd assured him there were no creatures under the sea faster than the merfolk, and he'd been in the unfortunate situation of not having many other options to choose from, or people to trust. But she'd broken the law of her own people and his to come get her kin back, and that kind of reckless disregard for ancient rules had granted her his respect, if nothing else.

"Leviathan has them now," his uncle continued calmly, the deep drum of his voice betraying no emotion.

Gajeel sneered. "The hell do you get off sentencing them to death for? That Neptune-cursed Old Law hasn't been in use since before _you_ were born."

Acnologia shrugged. "Perhaps not. Don't consider it a punishment for the mermaids, then. Consider it _your_ sentence." His look darkened. "For your traitorous plans, whelp. I should have done away with you alongside your mother."

Gajeel's fists shook. "You bastard! You did this because of _me_?"

Another careless shrug, and Gajeel wanted to run his fist through the king's chest. "I was thinking of how to properly handle your insubordination, and would you know, two mermaids fell into my lap and solved my problem for me. When Jose told me about them, I didn't think much of it, but then he showed me this." He held up the hand that wasn't holding the trident, and Gajeel's eyes widened at the sight of the polished sea-shell caught between his fingers, the carving easily distinguishable even through the murky water. His uncle regarded it with mild interest, a thoughtful hum in his throat. "You know, your mother had one just like it."

He flipped the shell like a coin, and Gajeel reached out, catching it before it sailed over the edge into the dark. When he looked up, his uncle hadn't moved an inch, but looked strangely amused. "You prove my point. I figured, what better punishment for trying to take away what's mine, than to get rid of something of yours? Really, Gajeel, I'd thought you stronger than this, falling for the whims of a sea-siren like some common human sailo–"

The ocean floor shook beneath them then, cutting his uncle off mid-sentence. Rocks dislodged from the edge to fall into the pit below, but Gajeel didn't get to ask what in the depths was going on, before Red's companions came hurtling over the edge, dragging the two mermaids with them, free of their shackles. But his relief was a short-lived thing, as the panic on their faces registered a moment later, and he saw that the dark haired mermaid was shouting something, but whatever it was it was lost in the ear-splitting _roar_ that came up from the pit, the sound following at their tails like snapping jaws.

And charging up from the dark behind them as they cleared the edge was a colossal shape, three times the size of a blue whale at the very least, its scaly hide so dark it looked crafted from the shadows themselves. Barnacles like small crags jutted from its back, interspersed with rows of green crystals, and its eyes were glowing slits above a jaw bigger than the bow of a human trader ship._  
_

It threw its head back in another roar, the sound shaking the very foundation of the ocean floor, and the sheer force of it was enough to nearly knock them all off balance. Even his uncle, Gajeel saw, nearly lost his grip on his trident. And Acnologia's expression was no longer unreadable – fear crossed his features now, cold and hard and true, and if Gajeel hadn't been so busy dealing with a similar reaction, he would have found the sight pleasing.

He caught the disbelieving mutter from the mermaid at his side as she lifted her sword, and felt the fear wrap around his heart as the beast turned its eyes on the gathered crowd.

* * *

AN: WHO ORDERED SUSHI. Oh hey, that was me, heh. (Oh, and if you're wondering how Gajeel teamed up with Erza & Co. fret not, it will be covered later!)


	9. the loyal guard

AN: A little explanation on the last chapter, since some of you requested it: no one's seen the Leviathan for generations and so Acnologia's chosen form of execution is more showboating than anything serious; he was thinking the mermaids would meet their end through light-deprivation, anchored to the bottom of the pit (sans massive sea monster or not, it's still a pretty shoddy way to kill someone), hence his surprise when the thing comes charging up like a massive, underwater jack-in-the-box.

There'll be some more on Leviathan's history later, but for now you'll have to contend with this.

* * *

**Chapter 9**

_The day before the execution_

"Where did Lily say to meet?"

Gajeel didn't spare the pink shark a glance as he cut through the water, busy keeping a look-out for guards as they made their way across the palace grounds. Juvia swam at his other side, as silent as she'd been when he'd told her to come along at her own risk. Lily's message had been cryptic, but Gajeel had known the shark long enough to understand what that meant. _Proceed with care. _"He didn't."

Natsu swam up to his side, a frown creasing his brow. "Then how do you know where you're going?"

Gajeel spared him a look. "I just _know,_ would ya leave it at that? Lil was in on this way before you came along. This ain't the first time we've had to meet like this."

Natsu snorted. "What, you two got secret codes or something?"

Gajeel didn't answer, but his thoughts went back to his youth, when the Guard Captain's young apprentice had spent his few hours of free time teaching the prince to fight, and indulging Gajeel in play Lily had been much too old for himself. They'd had codes, then, the two of them, and secret meeting spots, back in a time when Metalicana had been on the throne and Gajeel's heart hadn't been too heavy for a pup's make-believe games.

Then his father was dead, and his mother soon after. The pretend games became reality, and the secret meeting spots used not with play in mind but murder, and the dethronement of a false king.

They were heading to one of them now – Lily's obvious choice, if not Gajeel's. It was where he'd wait if he had news he didn't want anyone to overhear, at a secluded spot some ways south of the palace, on the far end of the coral-garden that hadn't flourished since his mother had been alive to tend to it. His uncle had no patience for such things and no mind to keep a gardener, and so the garden now rose, a barren stretch of rocks and natural ridges from the back of the palace to the southernmost edge of the grounds. Behind him as he swam across it, his mother's favourite balcony sat high on the palace wall, the banister overtaken by barnacles and clinging seaweed. A door of green and blue glasswork led to a chamber that had stood empty since his parents had passed; even Gajeel hadn't been near it in years.

As he'd hoped, the grounds were abandoned, and as they swam towards the furthest edge, Gajeel wondered if that wasn't Lily's own doing. He didn't know the extent of the contacts the bull-shark had in his former guard, but he suspected it was enough to make a few of them turn a blind eye if Lily needed them to.

As they neared a small outcropping of rocks, he saw the flicker of a dark tail through the water, before Lily came around the side. "About time you showed up," he greeted, with a nod of his head to Natsu and Juvia. "Good, you've brought them. I was worried you were going to come alone. We need all the hands we can gather for this to succeed."

A frown tugged at Gajeel's brow. "For what to succeed?" Lily didn't usually act on his own, but it would seem he had, although for what reason Gajeel couldn't hope to guess.

A shiver in the water to his right interrupted his thinking. "Whaddaya think? The rescue mission, of course. Isn't that why we're here?"

The new voice claimed and reeled his attention like a hook, and Gajeel looked towards the watery shadows, an oath pulling free of his lips as he spotted the colourful scales, and the tips of their tails soft and transparent, like veils where they curled through the water. Unmistakable features, in a kingdom of sharks.

He looked to Lily, disbelief clear on his face. "_More_ mermaids?"

"_Hey_," one of them protested, and he noted that it was, in fact, not a maid at all. "Watch it."

The one who'd first spoken – sporting a deep green tail and hair almost as dark as Gajeel's own – barked a throaty laugh. "Can't really blame him, Gray, though I'd question your supposed 'maidenhood' before I did your lack of tit–"

"Cana," the other mermaid cut her off, this one sporting hair of such a vivid, violent _red_ Gajeel wondered what the hell they fed merfolk to get that kind of colouring. "Please." She turned her attention to Gajeel, and he had the distinct feeling of being seized up. "You're the prince?" Without waiting for an answer, she bowed her head. "Erza Scarlet, Captain of the Royal Guard, at your service. I've been told you've got a plan to save our friends."

Gajeel looked at Lily again. The bull-shark was sporting a deceptively innocent look. "A plan?"

Lily shrugged. "I assumed you had one."

"Well I don't. Why in Neptune's depths did you tell them that?" He looked towards the three merfolk. "What are you even doing here?" The palace grounds were sealed off, and even sharks would have a hard time getting past the guards. How had three mermaids – and as colourful as these particular three – managed to sneak past?

Lily grinned. "I found them."

"You _found_ them?"

Lily nodded. "And a good thing that was, or your uncle would be throwing more than two down the pit tomorrow," he retorted easily. "They're looking for their friends, so I said we'd help. You _were_ planning on helping, weren't you?"

Gajeel was about to open his mouth, but one of the mermaids beat him to it. "As amusing as this little back-and-forth is, could we start making a plan, since you obviously don't have one?" It was the dark haired one who'd spoken – Cana, Red had called her. "We were told we were running out of time?" At that she threw an accusing glance in Lily's direction.

"We are. Your friends will face their execution tomorrow."

"They're chucking them into that pit, right? So we just need to get them out before they hit the bottom," she said. "Sounds simple enough."

Gajeel snorted. "They're gonna be falling pretty fast with the weights around their tails." _That_ was a particularly inventive trick of his great-grandfather, from back when they'd still kept up the tradition of tossing criminals into the pit.

She seemed unperturbed. "I'm a fast swimmer."

"It's pitch dark."

"Then I'll bring one of those glowy crystal-things, Poseidon's trident but aren't you a cynic?" Her eyes glittered with a mirth he couldn't understand – couldn't she grasp the seriousness of the situation? "And yet you're awfully worried about these mermaids," she drawled, tilting her head thoughtfully. "Why is that?"

Gajeel tried not to let his expression betray anything, but the way her smile curved he wondered how much she could read. "_Oh_, I see how it is. It's not an everyday romance, I'll give you that, but who am I to question your taste in fins?"

He wanted to protest, because just what was she _assuming – _and maybe part of him was irked that she'd been able to read him so well – but he was interrupted by Red. "What can we expect down there? You spoke of a 'Leviathan' – what's that?"

"An ancient sea creature," Pantherlily spoke up, before Gajeel could answer. "Part of our local history, a scary bedtime story for pups – take your pick."

"It's not just a story," Gajeel interjected.

Lily guffawed. "The beast is a legend of your great-grandfather's reign, Gajeel," he said, arms crossed over his chest. "It's a _story._ And your uncle has always loved a good show, you know that. Sacrificing the intruders to an underwater creature adds flair. Not to mention, I'm pretty sure the thought of scaring his prisoners half to death before their executions sounds pretty appealing to him, given that they're Makarov's kin."

Gajeel shook his head. "I don't think it's just for show."

"Juvia agrees," the shark-woman added then, surprising them all. When he looked at her for an explanation, she simply shrugged. "Juvia...feels the water," she said at length. "Juvia can't explain it, but Juvia thinks there is something down there."

Gajeel didn't question that intuition. Old blood ran in Juvia's veins, and her ancestors had been said to have known magic, back when it was a commodity amongst their kind – to have been attuned to the sea in a way few other sharks were. When they'd been pups, she'd always had a good sea-sense, better than anyone Gajeel knew, anyway. It had gotten them out of trouble on more than one occasion. And so if Juvia said there was something in Leviathan's Pit, he was damn well inclined to believe her.

"You really think it's real, don't you?" It was Natsu who asked, looking between the two of them. "I mean, I saw how you reacted when your uncle gave the sentence, but I just though it was because of, well, the sentence? If that thing's not just a myth, how come no one's seen tail or scale of it for three generations?"

Gajeel shrugged. "The hell would I know? I didn't say I'd seen it or anything, I just don't think that it's a story."

"And your uncle?" the sole merman asked. "What does he think?"

Gajeel scoffed. "Neptune knows what that bastard thinks. He's _sick_, either way. If there ain't no creature, they'll rot. They'll be down there until they starve to death." From lack of light or from food, whichever came first. No matter how you looked at it, it was a messed up way to go.

"And if there is a beast?" Red asked, voice falling like a blade between them, cutting through the tension. A practical mermaid, that one.

Gajeel looked towards the direction of Leviathan's Edge, where he'd been only once, back before his father had forbidden him from going. Lily had been sent to fetch him back, but he still remembered the sight of the gaping chasm, and the darkness that seemed to plunge into the soul of the earth. He had felt it then – the presence of something in the dark. It had haunted him ever since. No one had been thrown to the Leviathan since his great-grandfather had sat on the throne, and no report had survived that spoke of what had happened, or why they'd stopped that particular form of execution. If they were to throw fresh meat into the pit of a creature who'd seen none for centuries, who knew what would happen?

He pulled his eyes away, gaze meeting the worried expressions of his rag-tag team of companions – of merfolk and sharkfolk, coming together for the first time in centuries. He wondered if history would ever remember this moment, or if they'd fail and his uncle – or the beast – would wipe their existence clean from sharkfolk memory. He considered the lot of them, and the task that lay before them, and, lastly, the creature that may or may not exist. But if it did...

"Then we're all fucking _screwed."_

* * *

_Should've kept my Neptune-damned mouth shut. _

The Leviathan rose out of the pit, long limbs stretching as though from lack of use. Rocks fell from its back to vanish in the darkness below, and the green crystals embedded between its scales glinted like a hundred, glowing eyes that seemed to pin him in place.

"Poseidon's mercy," he heard Red murmur, and Gajeel was inclined to agree. From the corner of his eye, he noted that every mermaid was accounted for – the fair-haired one and the merman had gotten away from the edge in time to avoid being hit by the rocks still falling from the Leviathan's back.

"_Shit_ but that thing's huge," Cana cursed as she swam up to his side, dragging the little gold-finned mermaid with her. Levy looked a little worse for wear, eyes wide in terror as she stared up at the beast that had chased them up from the depths of the pit. Gajeel didn't blame her – the thing was a nightmare personified, worse than what even a pup's wildest imagination could conjure in the realm of sleep.

"You okay?"

She seemed to startle at the question, and drew her eyes away from the creature to look at him, seeming to see him properly for the first time since she'd come up from the pit. "U-uh, yeah. Yeah, I'm okay." She tried to smile. "Thank you."

Gajeel had been about to respond, but Cana snorted, effectively breaking the moment. "Don't be saying that just yet, sweet-fins – we're one gulp away from becoming fish food."

"Not on my watch," Red spoke up, fingers tightening around the hilt of her sword. She glanced at Levy over her shoulder. "Can you find your way back to the tunnel on your own?"

Levy looked at her friend, visibly uncertain. "I don't know. Maybe?" But Lucy only shook her head.

"I'll take them," Natsu spoke up then. "I know the way, and I'll make sure they get across the border."

Gajeel nodded. "Then go."

The little blue haired mermaid started at that, realization settling on her face, tugging her previously startled expression into one of surprising anger. "What– no! I'm not leaving you here with that!"

He glared right back. "You wanna be eaten instead?"

Red nodded her assent. "He's right, Levy. Leave the creature to us."

"You're staying?" Gajeel asked, surprised.

Erza nodded. "You aided in the rescue of my kin, when you did not need to. My assistance is the least I can offer."

Levy was still shaking her head, mouth opening to offer another protest, but he was having none of it. "I didn't risk my bloody tail fer you to argue, shortfin. _Go._"

"They're not going anywhere," Acnologia proffered his trident, madness bright in his eyes. "I'll give your corpses to appease the beast if I must." Despite his calm tone, there was a hint of fear in his words, and Gajeel spared a furtive glance at the Leviathan, still watching them from the mouth of the pit. It hadn't made a move to attack, and he wondered why. Maybe it was trying to figure out which bait to go for first, but he wasn't about to waste what little time they had dawdling just to find out. The crowd that had gathered had dispersed at the first sight of the creature, and it was only them, now.

"Your fight is with me_,_" he addressed his uncle, pointedly ignoring the beast.

"Gajeel_–_"

"I said _go_!" He turned to look at her – to ask why she found the concept so damn hard to grasp – but his anger died on his tongue when her small hands dipped into his hair, pulling his face towards her, lips slanting over his in a sudden, desperate kiss. His vision was a blur of blue, her mouth soft and the tips of her fingers cold where they brushed his temples.

Then she was drawing away. _"Don't die!"_ came the fierce command, and the words seemed to linger in the water even after she'd turned to swim away.

Too flabbergasted to even manage a response, Gajeel could only stare as she retreated, following Natsu and the others as they made to escape, the flash of her tail like a sliver of gold in the dark, disappearing between the underwater shadows with the speed mermaids were known for. His eyes followed the sight until he could no longer see her.

"Juvia," he rasped then, and cleared his throat, but she understood the underlying question.

"Juvia will make sure they get away," she declared, and without a pause, made a dash through the water to chase after Natsu and the merfolk. Gajeel watched her go, unease roiling in the pit of his stomach as she, too, disappeared out of sight. Anxiety sat like tension in his shoulders; events were unravelling like a poorly knit fisherman's net and all he could do was try to hold it together. Things hadn't gone as planned, but he'd expected that to some extent. Now he had to trust that Natsu would get them across the border, while Gajeel dealt with his uncle.

"Well, this certainly explains a few things," Acnologia said, drawing his attention. "But I stand by what I said. They're not going anywhere." And with a sharp, cutting motion of his hand, the guards at his back reacted, fanning out to the sides, cutting a wide arc around Gajeel and Erza before they made for the retreating party.

Gajeel released an oath, but his uncle's next words anchored him to the spot. "They'll never make it to the border," the king continued, in that bland tone of voice Gajeel _hated_ – the kind that made it seem as though he couldn't even make himself care enough to take joy in his own actions. It was a kind of condescending attitude the shark had always had, even when his brother had held the throne – the belief that he was somehow above everyone else, and above fickle things like personal attachments and emotions.

Torn between staying and going; between the Leviathan and the state of his kingdom and the escaping mermaids, Gajeel had never wanted more than in that moment to ram the trident through his uncle's chest.

A stirring in the water at his back provided a dearly sought answer. "Need some help?"

"_Now_ you show up," Gajeel muttered as Lily took his place at his side, unsheathing his broadsword from his back with an ease his years as a prison warden hadn't driven out of him. There were traces of the Royal Guard in him, yet, for all of Acnologia's attempts to purge them.

The bull-shark flashed him a toothy grin. "I had some business to take care of." He looked towards Leviathan's Pit, and the creature still sitting there, as though content with just watching them. It was an eerie sight, and part of Gajeel wished it would just attack and be done with it. Instead it watched them, seemingly curious. "You were right," Lily observed with a whistle. "How 'bout that."

"Yeah, I'm fucking thrilled. If we get out of this alive, I promise I'll gloat." Gajeel chanced a look over his shoulder in the direction the guards had taken off. Mermaids were freakishly fast swimmers, but sharkfolk were natural predators and his uncle's personal guard knew these waters better than most. Even Natsu and Juvia would have problems against a whole group of Acnologia's best warriors. _Neptune damn it all! _

"Go."

He looked at Lily, surprised, but Lily wasn't looking at him. Instead he was watching the king, holding Acnologia's gaze without flinching. The tip of his broadsword skimmed the rock beneath them as he hoisted it over his shoulder, the water rippling with the movement. "Go after your mermaid. I'll keep your uncle occupied." He glanced at the Leviathan. "And the creature."

"You and me both," Red added, and Gajeel could only blink at the ferocity in her tone, but she threw him a look that brooked no argument. "Well? What are you waiting for? Go!"

A split-second decision, and he made it, swearing as he turned to make a break for it. "You better not be dead when I get back!" he called over his shoulder, catching a last glimpse of the stand-off before he turned his head: a scarred bull-shark and a mermaid facing off against the king, the swirl of Red's hair like a mist of blood, an ominous foreshadowing that lingered in Gajeel's mind as he cut through the water. At the king's back the Leviathan sat, still like a piece of the rock come loose but unmoving, the glow of the green crystals embedded between its scales winking like the stars on the vast Above. Silent and watchful, like it waited for something.

Lily's charging roar drifted back to him through the murky water as he set his course towards the merfolk border, invoking the name of every damn deity he could think of that he'd reach them before the guards did.

And that he'd make it back in time to save his kingdom.

* * *

AN: Gotta love a good dilemma.


End file.
